It's 10 pm. Do you know where you and your loved ones are? Here is a collection of experiences from those who live / have lived with an obsessive MMOG gamer and from those who have lived the experience of obsessive MMOG gaming.

Friday, November 12, 2004

Here is an article from a couple of User Experience researchers / designers who have studied the emotions behind our needs for playing computer games and a written a White Paper called Why We Play Games. User Experience research is a derivative from the Human-Computer Interaction discipline which focuses on studying the design and use of interfaces. If you have a feeling that all this has to do with psychology somehow, you are right: the research methodologies and principles underlying this area of study borrows heavily from psychology (whether it's a cross-discpline or actually a subdiscipline of psychology is my own personal debate). Anyways, have a read. Note how Everquest is mentioned in ALL Four Keys to More Emotion without Story (Hard Fun, Easy Fun, Altered States, The People Factor).

This is what makes me ponder a bit, taking from the company's page on this paper:
"Forget Usability! What Makes It Fun?

As Player Experience Researchers, we see a huge gap between most usability and market research reports on gaming and what players actually experience. As Designers, we also see a huge opportunity for game developers to spawn player emotions beyond frustration, excitement, and fear. While players may check "good graphics" on a survey; our cross-genre, contextual research on why adults play games reveals a much more interesting story.
...
XEODesign,® Inc. helps companies create compelling interactive entertainment. We have spent over a decade researching software usability and more recently how interactive products trigger specific emotions. Our cutting-edge research and design services have improved the Player Experience for over 40 million customers of industry leaders such as UbiSoft, LeapFrog, Sony Online, Roxio, and Maxis. Our unique XEOAnalysis™ methodology measures emotional reactions during gameplay."

Wow, I wish they would spend that amount of time studying and designing a chair that woould evoke all these positive emotions in me...

2 Comments:

Blogger Job said...

Thanks for these posts. Great information!

Nov 12, 2004, 3:14:00 PM

 
Blogger J said...

Thanks for reading and responding! I am doing this research out of my own interest (I still don't know exactly what pulled me into the game for so long) and it's good to know when other people find it interesting, too.

Nov 13, 2004, 3:12:00 PM

 

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