The Relationship Between Game Elements and Player Emotions by Comparing Game Frameworks

Abstract

Emotion has become an important part in games. The purpose of this paper is to find whether game elements could influence players emotion? Which elements in a game could evoke player emotions? Previous theories showed game elements could be classified into two layers: the underlying layer and the metaphorical layer. Moreover, aesthetics, narrative, social interaction, and players’ ability in games could be emotional triggers. In this paper, we performed a case study to compare the two versions of a game: Game for Peace and PUBG Mobile. By using NLPIR (Natural Language Processing & Information Retrieval) platform, we analyzed 149 reviews of the new version to estimate the influence of specific game elements on player experience and emotion. Our study showed that: (1) even the small change of game elements has potential to influence players experience and emotion. (2) both the metaphorical layer and the underlying layer play a significant role in evoking players’ emotion. (3) Without the change of core gameplay, the alteration in theme and a metaphorical layer could alter players experience and emotions.