Moody Games
Michel 'Ekim' Veilleux, 2003-08-01

Do games affect your mood? It certainly does affect mine sometimes. Being a form of entertainment, games should and will trigger emotional responses, perhaps even more than in any other media because it is so much interactive. But once in a while the emotion triggered is negative. Are emotions good or bad for gaming?

Don't talk to me, I was just killed…

I rarely get sweaty while playing an RPG, although some action games have given me the sweats once or twice before. I did get the shivers a couple of times when a particular turning point in a story was gripping enough to trigger an emotion. I've never cried in a game, even though I'm man enough to admit that a few films have managed to bring tears to my eyes. I don't think that gaming has matured enough to be able to bring big enough emotional response as some other medias can do. Except perhaps with fear, an emotion that never quite got a hold of me in movies or television, but that I strongly felt more than once in games.

But what about mood? Moods are a little more abstract, but that doesn't make them less part of a game. I remember one night going to bed with a big frown on my face. When my wife, puzzled, asked me what was wrong, I started rambling about a Midgard gank group who cut me and my group mates off on our way to Emain. My wife gave me a strange look, and it made me realize how much a game can affect my mood.

Sometimes we don't realize it. We anticipate the moment when we can go back to a particularly good game. We are happy when we reach a certain level that grants a nice bonus. We're mad as hell when we fail to kill that strong NPC for the tenth time, blocking our way further into the adventure. Those moods follow us outside of the game as well, even if we don't necessarily realize it. Like a good book or a good movie, what we feel in a game transcends the boundaries of the playing time.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Is that a good thing, or a bad thing? It's a pretty good thing, and it's probably a major reason for the successes of the gaming industry in recent years. We seek to be emotionally touched by games, whether we admit it or not. It's more than only something to pass the time anymore. The games that do nothing to trigger our emotions, as trivial as these emotions may be, are the games we often like the least. And the mood of gamers all over the world is sometimes influenced by the games they are playing. As long as that influence isn't carried to extremes, it's always a good thing.

Frustration is an emotion too, and unfortunately I've experienced it many times in many games. When you feel like a game is out to get you, you're not having fun. Some games are harder than others. Sometimes certain genres don't appeal to certain people. But a game should never seem to be out to frustrate the player though. And if it does, then I guess the player has to stop. I don't like to be frustrated, it's not a positive emotion at all, and it's unfortunately a very strong emotion. It's a hard balancing act to pull of for a developer: to make a game challenging without making it frustrating.

I'm not talking about bugs here. Bugs are not supposed to be part of the emotional equation in games, and are simply an ugly, external source of frustration. When I'm frustrated I can't play a certain game because of a nasty bug that won't allow me to start it up, I'm simply reacting according to my desire to play that game, not because of the content itself. The story and the game elements that pull you in, the immersion factor, is what I'm really talking about.

Emotional Gaming: The Next Generation?

The point of all this is that emotions are good for gaming. It's probably the future of gaming too. And I hope that as the industry matures we will be offered even more emotionally charged games to play. Maybe one day someone will make a game with a story so engaging and so well constructed that I'll even shed a tear or two at some point in it. When that day comes, and when that type of story becomes the standard for gaming, then maybe games will have become the number one form of entertainment in the industry. Until that time, I will continue to hope, and keep my tears for other mediums.