"My Soul Got a Little Bit Cleaner": Art Experience in Videogames

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Abstract

Videogames receive increasing acclaim as a medium capable of artistic expression, emotional resonance, and even transformative potential. Yet while discussions concerning the status of games as art have a long history in games research, little is known about the player experience (PX) of games as art, their emotional characteristics, and what impact they may have on players. Drawing from Empirical Aesthetics, we surveyed 174 people about whether they had an art experience with videogames and what emotions they experienced. Our findings showcase the prominence of epistemic emotions for videogame art experiences, beyond the negative and mixed emotional responses previously examined, as well as the range of personal impacts such experiences may have. These findings are consistent with art experience phenomena characteristic of other art forms. Moreover, we discuss how our study relates to prior research on emotions and reflection in PX, the importance of games' representational qualities in art experiences, and identify lines of further inquiry.
Original languageEnglish
JournalProc. ACM Hum. Comput. Interact.
Volume5
Issue numberCHI PLAY
Pages (from-to)1-19
Number of pages19
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Keywords

  • player experience
  • emotion
  • art experience
  • videogames
  • empirical aesthetics

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