From Disorientation to Harmony: Autoethnographic Insights into Transformative Videogame Experiences

From Disorientation to Harmony: Autoethnographic Insights into Transformative Videogame Experiences

From Disorientation to Harmony: Autoethnographic Insights into Transformative Videogame Experiences

Jaakko Väkevä, Elisa D. Mekler, Janne Lindqvist

Abstract

"Videogames can transform the perspectives and attitudes of play-ers. Prior discussion on this transformative potential has typically been limited to non-entertainment videogames with explicit trans- formational goals. However, recreational gaming appears to hold considerable potential for igniting deeply personal experiences of profound transformation in players. Towards understanding this phenomenon, we conducted an explorative autoethnographic study. For this, the first author played five narrative-driven videogames while collecting self-observational and self-refective data of his experience during and outside gameplay. Our findings offer inti-mate insights into the trajectory and emotional qualities of person-ally meaningful and transformative videogame experiences. For example, we found that gameplay experiences that were initially perceived as bewildering or disorienting could evolve into more harmonious experiences laden with personal meaning. This shift in experience developed through different forms of subsequent re-engagement with initially discrepant game encounters."

Reference

Väkevä, J., Mekler, E. D., & Lindqvist, J. (2024). From disorientation to harmony: Autoethnographic insights into transformative videogame experiences. In F. F. Mueller, P. Kyburz, J. R. Williamson, C. Sas, M. L. Wilson, P. Toups Dugas, & I. Shklovski (Eds.), CHI ’24: Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1–20). ACM. https://dl.acm.org/doi/full/10.1145/3613904.3642543

Keywords

Player Experience, Aesthetic Experience, Transformative Experience