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.