fear in games

http://www.edge-online.com/features/how-make-fear/

The article above from Edge shows the steps required to making a scary game. It shows that there is definitely more to a scary game than dark lighting and jump scares. This suggests to me there is as definitely a connection between a game and the effects it can have on a player.

Fear is a base emotion but the fact that games can and do have an effect of scaring their players shows games can reach past the screen and into the heads of their players.

Silent Hill rather famously does this, with Silent Hill: Shattered Memories taking it a step further and changing the game enviroment, assets and character models depending on a psychological survey taken of the player at the beginning of the game to better scare that player. This shows a level of interaction between player and game quite unlike anything else.

Psychogeography

Having been pointed to Psychogeography by Marie Claire I have started to look up links on the subject to see how it could relate to my research report and my game itself.

http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/2

The above link was useful in that it explained the concept of psychogeography and also provided a critique of it, letting me see for myself its usefulness in relation to my work.

"Psychogeography could set for itself the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals. The adjective psychogeographical, retaining a rather pleasing vagueness, can thus be applied to the findings arrived at by this type of investigation, to their influence on human feelings, and even more generally to any situation or conduct that seems to reflect the same spirit of discovery"

What struck out at me from the above quote from the aforementioned link is "influence on human feelings".

The idea being that environments can have an effect on the emotions of those residing in those environs.  This has applications to both my essay and my BA8 studio work. Psychogeography could potentially be applied to a digital environment in a game. Which is the main point of my studio work.

However the implications for my essay are that indeed a digital environment could effect the player, and means I should look more into that.

emotions in games

Looking at how games attempt to manipulate the emotions of the players requires checking journals and studies conducted by psychologists and sociologists.

Here's a selection of studies I looked at:

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822%2810%2900942-5

http://psychcentral.com/news/2012/09/06/video-games-may-enhance-social-skills-for-autistic-youth/44256.html

http://www.bowenresearch.com/studies.php?id=3

The last link above, Bowen Research was what particularly interested me. It was a study that looked at the emotional effects games have on players. Using a Survey targeted at 535 gamers the study looked at whether or not games provoked emotions in the players and what sort of games provided the biggest emotive response.
Interestingly it shows that gamers do achieve an emotive connection to the games they play. With Role playing games being the most emotive. That suggests to me that games do infact evoke emotions within their players and the more a player is in touch with the player character (such as in a role playing game where the player is taking on a role) then the stronger the emotional connection.