The Psychology of the Player & Game Character Design and Representation

Metagame Book Club: Game Studies. "The Psychology of the Player & Game Character Design and Representation" by Sherry Jones. Published Dec. 3, 2015. Last Updated: Jan. 19, 2019.

**This page was first published on the Metagame Book Club.

Image Source: Characters from the game Super Smash Brothers.

Welcome to Week 3!

Welcome to the third and final week of Track 1: Games & Psychology! In the previous two sessions, we have covered various psychological theories that can be applied to designing games that are enjoyable for the player. We learn that player-centric design means to take into consideration the player’s physical and emotional needs. Now, in week 3, we shine the psychological lens on the player’s thinking, specifically, why the player wants to play any game in the first place. Two main questions regarding the psychology of the player will be addressed:

What are the player’s reasons for wanting to play a game? This complicated question leads to other tangential questions about player psychology such as: How do we assess the player’s psychological profile? Why do individual players gravitate toward one game genre over another? Why do some games appear more appealing to certain players? How do games motivate the players to continue playing them? What is happening when a player decides to quit a game? How do in-game characters impact the way players perceive themselves?
What is the nature of the relationship between the player and his/her protagonist character, and between the player and non player characters (NPCs)? Although game characters are not real people, social psychologists believe that the player still reenacts certain social roles when he/she interacts with fictional game characters (as the distinction between the real and the unreal becomes blurred when the player experiences the flow state. The flow theory was discussed extensively during week 1 discussions). Games also can condition the player's social behaviors when the player takes on the protagonist character, or calling on the player to interact with NPCs that represent various social identities.

In addition to reading about the research in player psychology, we will explore advanced game design methods for creating believable and relatable game characters. Character design not only involves designing the physical features of a character model, but also involves determining how the character will move and behave according to the constraints and affordances of its physical design.

Image Source: Web-cam shot from the character embodying program FaceRig.

Recent trend in character design includes using motion capture technology to capture a person's facial and body movements to create photo-realistic characters, although this level of realism often exhibits the undesirable uncanny valley effect as seen above. For game designers, this is an issue regarding low vs. high graphic fidelity (this issue was addressed during our week 2 discussion). Avoiding the uncanny valley effect in character design is also being studied extensively in psychology.

In this week's reading list, some of the major player psychological theories addressed this week are: Self Perception Theory; Proteus Effect; Personality and Motivation; Pleasure; Fidelity and Imagination; Quitting.

The assigned open access (OA) articles and videos below will address the aforementioned theories in depth.

Enjoy the readings! Onward~

-- Sherry Jones (Track 1: Games & Psychology Facilitator)