Communities of Nurturing:
How to Design Empathy?
(and other things most game developers are
embarrassed to talk about)
Aki Järvinen
aki@gameswithoutfrontiers.net
http://www.gameswithoutfrontiers.net

Aki’s Background
• Studying games academically since 1998, experience
from casual and mobile game design projects since
2000
• Experience from both academia, the game industry,
and game journalism
• Ph.D. on player experience driven methods of game
studies and design to be defended in 2007
• Drawing from psychology, study of arts, design
research, game design literature, etc.
Games without Frontiers
A Resource for Game Studies & Design

Set of Premises
• Recent success stories indicate that games’ emotional
spectrum need not be restricted to competition and conflict.
• Communities of Nurturing are audiences ready and willing to
experience other types of emotions when playing
• Animal Crossing and Nintendogs, among others, indicate
that emotions concerning fortunes of others, real or virtual,
can matter.
• How do games such as these create player engagement? What
is particular to that engagement?
• Keys to answer: Emotion theory adapted for purposes of
game studies and design
Games without Frontiers
A Resource for Game Studies & Design

Embodying feeling into
game designs
• In aesthetic theory, artistic practice is understood as a
practice of embodying feeling into a work (painting,
literature, film, music, etc.
• with techniques both particular to a medium, and the
modalities it addresses
• ...and general techniques having to do with cognition, i.e.
perception and understanding
• Like other aesthetic phenomena, Game designs embody
eliciting conditions for emotions and subsequent moods
• Which we all ’know’, yet when we are asked about it, can
we explain it?
• Here we go…
Games without Frontiers
A Resource for Game Studies & Design

Applying Emotion theory
• Ortony, Collins & Clore: The Cognitive Structure of Emotions
(1990)
• Emotions are valenced (+/-) reactions towards agents, events, or
objects in the world
• Games create micro-worlds with agents, events, and objects
• Emotion categories according to the OCC model:
• Prospect-based emotions
• Fortunes-of-others emotions
• Attribution emotions
• Attraction emotions
• Well-being emotions
Games without Frontiers
A Resource for Game Studies & Design

Player Experience
• At present, emotions
games privilege prospect-based and
attribution
• There is potential for new player experiences in
fortunes-of-others and attraction emotions
• How can this theoretical premise applied into
practice?
• How canthrough design? and attraction
fortunes-of-others
elicited
• Design of goals as a key
Games without Frontiers
A Resource for Game Studies & Design

Psychology of Goals
• The importance of goals for player experience can
not be overemphasized
• The road to attaining goals is beset by emotions
• Emotions function in the managing of goals. i.e.
how players prioritize one goal or means over
another
• Goals are embodied into the design of game
components, characters, environments, and their
attributes & behaviour
Games without Frontiers
A Resource for Game Studies & Design

Fortunes-of-others as
the key for empathy
• Game designs can embody eliciting conditions
for empathy and Altruism:
• With goals the completion of which benefit
other players or game characters
• With possibilities for players to act towards
completing such goals
• With persuasive goal rhetoric embodied,
e.g., into characters and their needs
Games without Frontiers
A Resource for Game Studies & Design

Nurturing as a set of
game mechanics
• Concrete actions for players that support emergence
of a mood of altruism
• Gift-giving; Remembering
• Caring
• Delivering
• Sharing
• …You name it!
Games without Frontiers
A Resource for Game Studies & Design

Rhetoric of Caring
• Functionin terms of anotherunderstand one
of metaphor is to
concept
• In game design, metaphors are created for rules
• Sets of metaphors constitute the theme of the
game
• Theme is communicated with play
a certain rhetoric
that persuades the players to
• Case example: Two designsThrust
of delivery with
dierent metaphors: Ico vs.
Games without Frontiers
A Resource for Game Studies & Design

Theme is everything!
Games without Frontiers
A Resource for Game Studies & Design

Animal Crossing
• Designing recognition, alignment, and/or allegiance to
characters is another key to empathy
• Dialogue as a characterization technique that elicits
emotions: Behaviour of NPCs need not be restricted to
animation techniques! (cf. ‘Uncanny valley’)
• Goal hierarchy as a key to achieve this:
• Goals-of-animals contribute to Goals-of-self and
Goals-of-village
• Mood supported: Community spirit, i.e. caring about
common concerns and the ‘feelings’ of the animal
characters
Games without Frontiers
A Resource for Game Studies & Design

Games without Frontiers
A Resource for Game Studies & Design

Nintendogs
• Simulation of a living being and its
behaviour as a set of eliciting conditions
• Gestures and canine behavioural cues
(wagging the tail, barking) as constituents
of eliciting conditions
• Dog as a faithful companion which, as a
pet, still depends on the care of a human
• ’Pet schema’ as a structure, i.e. event
schema about caring, functions as a
metaphor for understanding Nintendogs
rules
Games without Frontiers
A Resource for Game Studies & Design

Shadow of the Colossus
• Sense of Loss & Inevitability as key
moods
• The player is put to destroy that
which provides the player experience
of spectacle and struggle
• The tone of game rhetoric supports
this; completion of high-order goals
are communicated with tragic
overtones
• Could be used as design solutions for
an environmentalist game?
Games without Frontiers
A Resource for Game Studies & Design

Dying in
Darfur
• Empathy through identification
with Goals-of-Darfurian
refugees
• Empathy through persuasion
• Three types of persuasion:
• Response-Shaping,
• Response-Reinforcing, or
• Response-Changing
• Identifying with Fortunes-of-
Darfurians as intellectual and
altruistic ’Ideo-Pleasure’
Games without Frontiers
A Resource for Game Studies & Design

Summary
• Game designs embody eliciting conditions for emotions
• The constituents of eliciting conditions include goals,
player possessions, player performances, etc.
• Emotion theory gives us concepts & vocabulary with
which to talk about goal and player relationships
• At present, fortunes-of-self type of emotions are
overprivileged in games.
• Designing constituents for Fortunes-of-others through
goal hierarchies and game mechanics as a method
• ... in order to create community ties and broader
audiences
Games without Frontiers
A Resource for Game Studies & Design

Further Resources
• http://www.gameswithoutfrontiers.net
• Aki’s Thesis chapters & online analysis
tools (TBA)
• http://gamegame.blogs.com
• Card game / brainstorming tool for
game design
• aki@gameswithoutfrontiers.net
Games without Frontiers
A Resource for Game Studies & Design