The Strange Attraction of Simulation : Realism, Authenticity, Virtuality

Enjoying My Time in the Animus: A Quantitative Survey on Perceived Realism and Enjoyment of Historical Video Games

“…This multidimensional structure of perceived realism has been identified in a wide variety of shooting game genres, ranging from shooting games in general (Ribbens & Malliet, 2010), over fantasy-themed and military-themed shooting games (Ribbens et al, 2016) to specific game titles (Ribbens, 2013) such as Half-Life 2 (Valve, 2004), indicating that the proposed structure is robust and valid. Malliet and Ribbens (2012) suggested that this conceptualization can help uncover the cognitive learning processes that occur while playing shooting games such as America's Army (United States Army, 2002–2013), and can also help explain the attractions and enjoyment of both military and science fiction shooting games (Daneels et al, 2018). These findings lead to the question whether similar processes can be observed in the context of historical video games, which often also feature considerable amounts of action and the exploration of elaborate virtual worlds.…”

“…Perceived realism, referring to the extent to which an audience evaluates how realistic a media text or message is, has been forwarded as an important concept to understand the gameplay experience, both regarding its effects (Malliet & Ribbens, 2012) and its attractions (Daneels et al, 2018). While initial operationalizations of perceived game realism have mainly highlighted the graphical qualities of games (McGloin et al, 2011), subsequent research has shown that narrative and ludic characteristics should be attributed equal importance (Breuer et al, 2012; Lin & Peng, 2015; Ribbens, 2013).…”