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Abstract

Gaming elicits strong emotional responses. However, little is known about which situations within the gameplay elicit specific emotions. Thus, we aimed to identify which gaming situations elicit positive and negative emotions. We asked Counter-Strike: Global Offensive gamers (N = 652) to recall and write about a situation when they felt amused, angry, enthusiastic, or sad. In our analysis, we used semantic coding and affective words analysis using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC). We found that gamers described emotional situations (e.g., clutch, victory, or hacking) that we clustered into 12 broader categories (e.g., positive performance outcomes, underperforming, and technical issues). Gamers reported similar (rather than specific) situations for anger and sadness and similar for amusement and enthusiasm. We documented a wider than usually considered range of positive and negative emotions related to gaming along with specific gaming themes that produce these emotions. These findings contribute to a broader and more specific (events-based) understanding of the emotional aspects of video gaming.
Emotions and gaming 1
© 2020, Elsevier. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the final, authoritative
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version of the article. Please do not copy or cite without authors' permission. This manuscript version is
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made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
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The final article will be available, upon publication, via its DOI:
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.entcom.2020.100397
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Emotions and gaming 2
RUNNING HEAD: Emotions and gaming
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What makes male gamers angry, sad, amused, and enthusiastic while playing violent video
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games?
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Maciej Behnke1, Patrycja Chwiłkowska1, Lukasz D. Kaczmarek1
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1Faculty of Psychology and Cognitive Science, Adam Mickiewicz University
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Author Notes
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Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Maciej Behnke, Faculty of
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Psychology and Cognitive Science. Adam Mickiewicz University, 89 Szamarzewskiego Street,
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60-658 Poznań, Poland. E-mail: macbeh@amu.edu.pl
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CRediT author statement: Maciej Behnke: Conceptualization; Data curation; Formal
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analysis; Investigation; Methodology; Project administration; Writing - original draft; Writing -
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review & editing; Patrycja Chwiłkowska: Data curation; Formal analysis; Writing - review &
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editing; Lukasz D. Kaczmarek: Conceptualization; Formal analysis; Methodology; Supervision;
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Writing - review & editing. All authors had full access to all data in the study and take
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responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.
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Funding sources: This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies
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in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. This article's preparation was supported by
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doctoral scholarships from the National Science Centre in Poland (UMO-2019/32/T/HS6/00039)
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and Adam Mickiewicz University Foundation to MB.
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Emotions and gaming 3
Abstract
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Gaming elicits strong emotional responses. However, little is known about which situations
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within the gameplay elicit specific emotions. Thus, we aimed to identify which gaming situations
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elicit positive and negative emotions. We asked Counter-Strike: Global Offensive gamers (N =
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652) to recall and write about a situation when they felt amused, angry, enthusiastic, or sad. In
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our analysis, we used semantic coding and affective words analysis using Linguistic Inquiry and
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Word Count (LIWC). We found that gamers described emotional situations (e.g., clutch, victory,
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or hacking) that we clustered into 12 broader categories (e.g., positive performance outcomes,
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underperforming, and technical issues). Gamers reported similar (rather than specific) situations
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for anger and sadness and similar for amusement and enthusiasm. We documented a wider than
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usually considered range of positive and negative emotions related to gaming along with specific
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gaming themes that produce these emotions. These findings contribute to a broader and more
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specific (events-based) understanding of the emotional aspects of video gaming.
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Keywords: video games, positive emotions, negative emotions, LIWC
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Emotions and gaming 4
Highlights:
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We identified which gaming events produce anger, sadness, amusement, and enthusiasm.
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Semantic coding and affective words analysis documented the validity of identified
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events.
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These findings can be used by game developers to make informed decisions regarding
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emotions elicited by their games
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Emotions and gaming 5
1. Introduction
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Gaming offers diverse emotional experiences ranging from intense positive emotions (e.g.,
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amusement) to intense negative emotions (e.g., anger)[1]. However, research on gaming and
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emotions has been biased towards the negative consequences of playing videogames [2]. Studies
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have identified the game-design as one factor that elicits strong negative emotions [3,4,5,6]. For
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instance, the game's violent content (e.g., graphic presentation of death) is associated with
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increased emotional arousal observed at physiological and subjective level [3,4,5]. Whereas the
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darkness, presence of disfigured humans, and zombies are the most common stimuli eliciting fear
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while gaming [6]. Furthermore, studies identified specific gaming behaviors that elicit negative
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emotions such as poor communication, criticism within the team, underperforming, and losing
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matches that were expected to win [7, 8].
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More recently, studies have started to emphasize the positive influences of video gaming
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on human emotional experience [9]. For instance, playing some videogames make gamers happier,
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less distressed, and less frustrated [10,11]. Gamers identified that making progress and successful
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performances elicit positive emotions [12]. Even playing violent games has the potential to increase
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positive emotions [1,13]. Gamers indicated that playing against 'evil' elicit positive emotions [14].
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Although the emotions elicited by gaming situations might seem intuitive, studies on the emotional
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experience of playing first-person shooter games show its complexity. For instance, wounding and
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killing an opponent causes an increase of positive emotions that could result from the game's
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progress [15] but also leads to an increase of negative emotions like fear and anger that could result
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from shooting the rivals [16]. Similarly, wounding or killing one's character (a negative event in
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the game) leads to positive emotions that could result from alleviating the stress associated with
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playing [1], but also leads to negative emotions that could result from the game's failure [15].
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Emotions and gaming 6
Despite the growing body of research on video-gaming emotional consequences, little is
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known what scripts or specific in-game triggers elicit specific positive and negative emotions.
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Establishing a link between the behavioral content of gaming and specific affective outcomes is
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important to make informed decisions regarding the game use, game development, and treatment
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of gamers that exhibit problematic gaming patterns. For instance, in anger management therapy
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for gamers, practitioners might use the list of gaming situations that cause problematic behavior,
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such as rage-quitting - the act of disconnecting gaming equipment, sometimes violently [17].
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Furthermore, gamers and their coaches might use a specific situation to train emotion regulation
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skills to enhance future performance. Finding new methods and strategies to facilitate
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performance is essential in esports. Players often present similar gaming skills, and winning or
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losing depends on peripheral factors such as emotions [18,19].To address these problems, we
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aimed to examine what behavioral scripts gamers associate with specific emotions using semantic
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coding. Furthermore, we investigated the descriptions of emotional experiences with
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computerized affective language analysis. Thus, our secondary aim was to determine whether
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gamers would use specific affective language to describe the emotional experiences.
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In studying emotions, we focused on four types of emotions that resulted from the
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combination of two dimensions of emotional experience, namely valence and approach-
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avoidance tendencies [20]. Thus, we targeted amusement (positive affect, low approach
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tendency), enthusiasm (positive affect, high approach tendency), sadness (negative affect, low
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approach tendency), and anger (negative affect, high approach tendency). Considering both
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dimensions of emotional experience valence and approach-avoidance tendencies - it is not yet
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clear which one is responsible for affective costs and benefits that gamers reap from gaming. This is
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not an extensive list of dimensions that characterize emotional experience (e.g., arousal or
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dominance)[21]. We start with valence because it is the most basic aspect of the emotional
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Emotions and gaming 7
experience. We contrasted it with the motivational tendency that is a rather novel and not fully
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investigated dimension that might be crucial in a gaming context. A recent study has shown that
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approach motivation directly influences gaming performance [22].
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We expected that the gaming situations' descriptions would fit the core theme of the
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examined emotions. Amusement would be linked to humorous events that are mostly elicited by
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events that violate expectations due to others' actions [23]. Enthusiasm would be linked to
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opportunities for imminent resource acquisition [23]. Anger would be triggered by external
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factors that may harm (physically or psychologically) something important for an individual and
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impede the pursuit of a valuable goal [24]. Sadness would be linked to losses of an object or
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person to which individuals are very attached [24].
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To study emotional scenarios that were related to gaming, we focused on one of the most
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popular PEGI 18 games Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO). CS:GO is a multiplayer
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team-based first-person shooter where two teams compete against each other in simulated
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military combat. CS:GO is one of the leading games in the esports team-play category that
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engages up to 600,000 daily active players worldwide [25]. In this game, individuals form two
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teams with opposing motives: counter-terrorists vs. terrorists. The mission of the counter-
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terrorists is to disarm explosives planted by the terrorists or eliminate all terrorists.
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2. Material and Methods
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2.1 Participants
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Participants were 652 CS:GO players (617 male gamers) in the age between 18 and 39
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years (M = 20.75, SD = 3.58). Participants reported how many years ago they started to play
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CS:GO (M = 5.20, SD = 4.19), and how many hours per week they usually played (M = 19.57,
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SD = 19.81). A power analysis using G*Power 3.1 [26] indicated that detection of expected effect
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sizes [27] of d = 0.30 for the difference between the conditions, with the power of .80, would
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Emotions and gaming 8
require a sample size of 536 participants (139 per group). The study was in accordance with the
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Declaration of Helsinki and ethical guidelines provided by the National Science Centre in Poland.
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All participants were informed about the study, and all provided signed informed consent.
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2.2 Procedure
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Players were recruited via a Facebook advertisement targeted at CS: GO players in
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English-speaking countries. We created four groups and asked players to recall the moments of
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enthusiasm (n = 162), amusement (n = 169), sadness (n =146), or anger (n =175) that they
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experienced during CS:GO playing. Gamers were asked to think about moments of amusement
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(enthusiasm or sadness or anger) related to playing CS: GO. Furthermore, gamers were asked to
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think about situations when they felt intensely excited or zealous (enthusiasm), amused or
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entertained (amusement), sad or miserable (sadness), enraged or angry (anger) during the
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gameplay. We asked participants to write about one such situation focusing on emotions they felt
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while gaming.
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2.3 Open Coding
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To determine which situations elicited specific emotion, the gaming event descriptions
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were submitted to open coding. First, two judges coded the situations with keywords, to sum up
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what participants were sharing. In open coding, the text is coded to find as many codes as
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possible without considerations of relevance (e.g., "clutch", "hacking", playing with friends or
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victory) [28]. The specific events and situations constituted for identification of broader events
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categories based on their conceptual similarity (e.g., successful performance, performance
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context, underperforming, and technical issues) [28]. Raters assigned the statements to the
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appropriate categories. The interrater agreement was high (Krippendorff’s α = .84). Finally, the
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raters resolved disagreements by consensus.
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2.4 Affective Language Analysis
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Emotions and gaming 9
Measures of affective expressions were obtained by analyzing text (events descriptions)
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produced by gamers with Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) [29]. The program counts
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target words or word stems from an extensive dictionary and categorizes them into linguistic and
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affective dimensions. The software converts the raw counts to percentages of total words. Several
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research studies (involving the generation, expression, and regulation of emotions) have shown
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the validity of the LIWC [27,30]. To determine the characteristic affective style of reported
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situations, we performed multivariate ANOVAs with emotion categories as the independent
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variables and 12 LIWC categories as the dependent variables using SPSS 23 (Inc., Chicago,
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Illinois). Post hoc tests with Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons were used to
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determine differences between the conditions. To account for multiple comparisons (e.g., the
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difference in positive emotions between amusement and enthusiasm, amusement and sadness,
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amusement and anger), we adjusted probability values using the false discovery rate (FDR)
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formula [31]. This resulted in adjusting confidence intervals to balance Type I and Type II error.
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3. Results
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3.1 Open Coding
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Participants used from 1 to 229 words (M = 20.04, SD = 27.19) to describe events that
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elicited emotions during the gameplay. Gamers listed unique 87 situations clustered into 12
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broader categories (Table 1). Amusing gamers' scenarios were related to performance context,
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humorous events, positive performance outcomes, successful performance, and underperforming
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(Table 1). Gamers mostly mentioned victories, skillful kills, winning clutch situations, playing
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with friends, and ridiculous shots. For enthusiasm, gamers described situations related to their
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successful performance, positive performance outcomes, performance context, and positive team
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performance (Table1). The most frequent situations were clutch play (a player wins a round after
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being the last man standing for their team), victories, and competitive matches.
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Emotions and gaming 10
Angry scenarios described by gamers were related to negative behaviors of own-team,
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negative performance outcomes, negative behaviors of rival-team, communication issues,
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underperforming, and technical issues (Table 1). Gamers pointed out situations such as playing
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with weak teammates, playing against hackers, someone sabotaging a team-play, internet lagging,
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losing the match, dying, or teammate throwing a game. Gamers reported sad situations that were
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related to negative performance outcomes, underperforming, negative behaviors of own-team,
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negative behaviors rival-team, and communication issues (Table 1). Gamers described losing
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situations, playing with weak teammates, losing the game that should be won, and
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underperforming. Sad events were characterized by more expressions related to sadness (e.g.,
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grief, sad, miserable), risk (e.g., danger, doubt) compared to other conditions.
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[Table 1 near here]
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3.2 Affective Language Analysis
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We found that participants characterized situations related to discrete emotions by using
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specific affective language, F (36, 1917) = 7.51, p < .001; Pillai’s Trace = 0.37, partial η2 = .12.
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(Table 2). Because of the significant results of the null hypothesis testing of equality of
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covariance matrices, Boxs M = 3515.12, F (234, 870444.56) = 14.54, p < .001, we interpreted
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Pillais Trace, not Wilks λ. We observed differences between conditions for twelve affective
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language subcategories (Table 2). Descriptions of amusing situations had a higher percentage of
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expressions related to positive emotions (e.g., happy, relax, fun, laugh) than for anger conditions
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and more expressions related to friends (e.g., friend, mates, team) compared to sadness (Table 2).
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Descriptions of enthusiastic events had the highest percentage of expressions related to
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achievements (e.g., win, competitive, playing very well, comeback) compared to other conditions
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(Table 2). Situations related to enthusiasm were described with more positive emotions (e.g.,
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Emotions and gaming 11
pleasure, happy, amazing, ecstasy) compared to anger and sadness, and more expressions related
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to power (e.g., kill, fire, hit) compared to anger.
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The description of the anger-provoking situation was characterized by more expressions
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of negative emotions (e.g., toxic, weakness, losing), anger (e.g., kick, smash, kill, annoyed, f**k),
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and social words (e.g., teammate, they, team) compared to enthusiasm (Table 2). Furthermore,
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situations related to sadness were described with more expressions related to negative emotions
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(e.g., bad, losing, rude), feelings (e.g., choke, feel), achievements (e.g., better, beat) compared to
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amusement (Table 2). Sad events were described with more words related to negative emotions
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compared to enthusiasm, and with more words related to feelings compared to anger.
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[Table 2 near here]
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4. Discussion
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We aimed to identify gaming situations that elicit specific emotions while CS:GO
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gaming. We found that gamers produced descriptions that were grouped into several unique
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categories. We identified several core scenarios that are common in generating specific positive
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and negative emotions among gamers, such as ridiculous shots (amusement), clutching
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(enthusiasm), playing with weak teammates (anger), or deranking (sadness). Furthermore, we
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found meaningful differences in affective language used to describe these situations. These
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findings present a novel perspective on affective experience among gamers.
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We found that specific gaming scenarios that elicited emotions in gamers fit the core
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characteristics of targeted emotions. For amusement, gamers reported mindless game mistakes or
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ridiculous shots during recreational gaming, whereas for enthusiasm, gamers reported successful
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games in competitive or tournament settings. For anger, gamers often reported unfair situations -
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hacking, cheating, trolling, smurfing. Finally, gamers reported losing as the most common
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saddening scenarios. In sum, we found typical situations that elicited amusement, anger,
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Emotions and gaming 12
enthusiasm, and sadness. Although it is not surprising, we found the replicative part of this
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research is essential because several analyses indicate that the effects reported in the
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psychological literature often fail to replicate [32].
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Furthermore, we applied computerized text analysis to complement semantic coding that
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examined affective language used to describe gaming situations. In our study, gamers used
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specific language to characterize different gaming moments. Our findings extend the
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methodological perspective that language is an effective tool in detecting individuals’ emotional
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states. We presented that this method is adequate for studying affective experience in video
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gamers. Future studies might progress with our findings to identify gamers’ emotions from within
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the game communication between gamers. With new research technologies' maturation, their
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common use is likely to contribute to more versatile evidence and new research ideas.
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Although we found several specific situations that elicited targeted emotions, we also found
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several similar situations that elicited anger and sadness (e.g., underperforming) and enthusiasm
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and amusement (e.g., successful performance). For both positive emotions, gamers mostly
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mentioned victories, skillful kills, and good performances such as the clutch play. For both negative
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emotions, gamers usually described defeating scenarios due to their poor performance, weak
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teammates, or other gamers' unfair behavior such as hacking. Furthermore, not all affective
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expressions categories presented expected patterns. For instance, there were no differences
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between amusement and sadness in positive words or anger and amusement in negative words.
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These findings are consistent with a constructionist view of emotion [33]. Within a constructionist
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framework, people construct emotions in their minds based on the similarities and differences in
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functions and purposes of specific actions. Therefore, affective reactivity is expected to vary within
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the discrete emotion and overlap with other discrete emotions from person to person. It is not the
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automatic, inherent response to the stimuli.
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Emotions and gaming 13
This study has practical implications. We presented situations that elicit specific emotions
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in CS:GO. Game developers may implement our findings to make games such as CS:GO more
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emotionally arousing or to streamline the affective experience towards specific emotions. For
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instance, by targeting a wider range of specific emotions, video games might offer a means to
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maintain high-quality entertainment. This is particularly important in increased social isolation
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and deficits in real-world entertainment, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore,
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gamers and their coaches might use our findings to create pre-performance emotion regulation
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strategies to enhance future performance. For instance, gamers might create personal clips
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presenting their best plays to elicit enthusiasm, which is effective tool for esport performance
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optimization [22]. Finally, our findings might be relevant to practitioners. Using our list,
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practitioners could target situations within gaming that cause problematic behavior. Practitioners
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might select specific situations related to problematic emotions and evaluate gamers treatment
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progress when facing these situations.
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4.1 Limitations and Future Directions
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This study has several limitations. First, individuals self-selected to participate in our
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study. Thus, this study is more likely to overrepresent players highly involved in gaming. Second,
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we examined four emotions accounting for positive-negative and approach-avoidance dimensions
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of emotional experience. Including additional discrete emotions into the analyses (e.g., pride or
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fear) would provide a complete repertoire of emotional situations within the gameplay. Future
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studies may provide evidence, which specific moments make gamers experience pride, gratitude,
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contentment, or awe. Third, this study included participants from countries where English is the
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first language, such as the US, UK, or Australia. There are, however, likely cultural differences
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that might produce different results in participants residing in other countries and using different
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languages. Fourth, our participants were mostly male gamers. It reflects the situation among first-
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Emotions and gaming 14
person shooter-type gamers, where the vast majority, up to 93%, are male [34]. Therefore, our
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results apply to male gamers, whereas future studies might focus on whether the results
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generalize to female gamers. Female participants might reveal different experiences. Fifth, in this
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study, we focused only on the single-game context, namely CS: GO gamers. Although CS:GO
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represents the leading genre in esports competition first-person shooter genre - future studies
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may examine whether emotional events are likely to translate well to other competitive games.
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This would help to identify emotion eliciting general situations for esports (i.e., problems with
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the computers) and specific situations for the particular games. Finally, we used self-reports
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while controlling for physiological or behavioral emotional reactions that would have provided
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further insights into the specific situation that elicit emotional experience.
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4.2 Conclusion
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Our research offers novel evidence and a detailed description that playing video games
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offers a versatile affective experience. With this study, we defocused from negative emotions
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typically studies in the context of first-person shooter games and extended the scope with positive
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emotions. We demonstrated that playing CS:GO offers a positive experience from recreational
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and competitive matches with other players. Using semantic coding and computerized affective
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text analysis, we found that similarities outweighed the differences within positive and within
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negative emotions. Gamers reported similar (rather than specific) situations for anger and sadness
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and similar for amusement and enthusiasm. Our study broadened the understanding of the
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affective costs and benefits that gamers reap from gaming. Knowing which specific gaming
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situations elicit specific emotions is important for the gaming community. Our findings may help
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make informed decisions regarding esport performance optimization and the treatment of
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problematic gaming behaviors.
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5. Disclosure Statement: No potential competing interest was reported by the authors.
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Table 2
Text Analysis of the Emotional Situations During the Gameplay
LIWC
subcategories
F
η2
Post hoc
Positive emotions
15.70***
0.08
E>An***, E>S***, Am>An**
Negative emotions
28.21***
0.12
An>E***, S>Am***, S>E***
Anger
6.55***
0.03
An> E***
Sadness
37.40***
0.15
S>E***, S>Am***, S>An***
Social
6.33***
0.03
An>E***
Friend
5.44**
0.02
Am>S***
Feeling
8.29***
0.04
S>Am***, S>An***
Achievement
10.64***
0.04
S>Am***
Power
7.66***
0.04
E>An***
Reward
11.41***
0.05
E>Am***, E>An***, E>S***,
Risk
18.13***
0.08
S>E***, S>Am***, S>An***
Work
4.92**
0.02
Note. Significance adjusted for FDR. Am = Amusement, An = Anger, E = Enthusiasm, S =
Sadness. Dfs for ANOVAs = 3, 648.
**p < .01, ***p < .001.
... The following research methods were included in the 15 studies that examined stressors and coping (see Table 2), which included five survey studies (Behnke et al., 2021;Leis et al., 2023;Pereira et al., 2021;Poulus et al., 2020Poulus et al., , 2022c, one observational study (Hussain et al., 2021), and ten interview studies. The interview-based studies comprised eight semi-structured interviews (Cote, 2017;Himmelstein et al., 2017;Hussain et al., 2021;Leis et al., 2022;Poulus et al., 2022a;Sabtan et al., 2022;Schubert et al., 2022;Smith et al., 2019) and one focus-group interview (Polat et al., 2023). ...
... Studies highlighted with asterisk indicate those that examined the relationship between stressors, coping, and additional constructs. studies (Behnke et al., 2021;Pereira et al., 2021;Pereira et al., 2022;Poulus et al., 2020;Ruvalcaba et al., 2018;Smith et al., 2022), one observational (Ruvalcaba et al., 2018), and one diary study (Poulus et al., 2022b). Some of these studies employed a combination of methods. ...
... The stressor and coping studies' research questions focused on various aspects, such as situations eliciting positive and negative emotions (Behnke et al., 2021), stressors and coping strategies (Leis et al., 2022;Poulus et al., 2022c;Smith et al., 2019), and challenges in professional esports teams (Sabtan et al., 2022). Four studies exclusively focused on competitive contexts (Leis et al., 2022(Leis et al., , 2023Poulus et al., 2022b;Smith et al., 2019), whereas 11 studies focused on aspects such as challenges experienced by players relating to training and competition. ...
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In this systematic review, we provide an overview of stressors and coping strategies in esports, emphasizing the goal of informing applied practice and guiding future research. Guided by the PRISMA guidelines and employing the SPIDER framework, we synthesize findings from 19 studies. Performance stressors such as defeat and performance pressure (e.g. pressure to win) were prominently observed, along with team, social, organizational, and personal stressors. Coping strategies, aligned with Nicholls et al. (2016), demonstrate internal regulation was the most frequently reported, followed by mastery coping, while goal withdrawal strategies were less frequently reported. Comparing esports to traditional sports highlights the role of social stressors such as social media and public perceptionin esports. However, personal stressors remain relatively unexplored. The review also identifies research gaps in stressor appraisal and communal coping strategies. Future research could delve into personal stressors, considering a wide array of psychological factors, and employing dynamic methodologies. Practical implications revolve around tailored interventions, promoting open communication, mastery coping techniques, and holistic well-being strategies. This review provides a broader understanding of esports stressors and coping strategies, offering a starting point for targeted interventions aimed at enhancing performance and well-being in the distinctive competitive landscape of esports.
... Smurfing as a mode of play is beyond the capabilities of the average player and happens for a variety of reasons (Conroy et al., 2020). Perceived as unfair (Behnke et al., 2021) and as a form of cheating (Kou, 2020) it can be viewed as toxic behavior, an umbrella term for negative behaviors such as griefing, harassment and cheating (Adinolf & Turkay, 2018). The etymology remains unclear, yet anecdotal evidence points to two skilled players in the late 90s playing Warcraft 2 with alternative accounts as PapaSmurf and Smurfette, indicating that the term originates in the name choices of two players engaged in the act People who smurf do it for a host of cognitive, functional and emotional benefits. ...
... These players often experience a sense of powerlessness and frustration and view the act of smurfing as destructive (Kou, 2020). As in conventional sports, players in CS:GO experience 'unsportsmanlike behaviors' and in game rule breaking (Irwin & Naweed, 2020) and smurfing is perceived as unfair by gamers, leading to anger and other negative emotions (Behnke et al., 2021). Griefing in online multiplayer games is when a player intentionally disrupts the play experience of others (Foo & Koivisto, 2004). ...
... Smurfing to date has only been partly examined within of wider studies on toxicity, sportsmanship, cheating and player emotions (Behnke et al., 2021;Conroy et al., 2020;Irwin & Naweed, 2020;Kou, 2020;Morstatter et al., 2021;Paul et al., 2015). Given that toxic behaviors in esports remains relatively underexplored (Kordyaka et al., 2020) and the importance of addressing such issues for a sustainable future for esports (Nyström et al., 2022), the following research question underpins this study: How can we understand smurfing on the CS:GO matchmaking platform from the perspective of prosumers? ...
... Using alternate lower-ranked accounts refers to the act of "smurfing," which is commonly perceived as a form of cheating or toxic behavior (Cavadenti et al., 2015;Conroy et al., 2020;Kou, 2020) and to date has only been partly examined within of wider studies on toxicity, sportsmanship, cheating, and player emotions (Behnke et al., 2021;Conroy et al., 2020;Irwin & Naweed, 2020;Kou, 2020;Morstatter et al., 2021;Paul et al., 2015). Toxic behaviors in esports remain relatively underexplored (Kordyaka et al., 2020), with value in addressing such issues as part of a sustainable future for esports (Nyström et al., 2022). ...
... A typology of those who play esports titles identifies that the majority play for casual reasons such as socializing, escapism, or fun (71.8%), while the remainder (28.2%) engage for competitive reasons (Hedlund, 2021). Increasingly, players play games such as CS:GO recreationally to achieve positive social outcomes (Behnke et al., 2021), yet the play experience can be shaped negatively with behaviors by other players, such as smurfing, trolling, griefing, and cheating, creating negative emotional impacts (Behnke et al., 2021). The playing esports audience is crucial to the base economics of the esports ecosystem (Andrews & Ritzer, 2018). ...
... A typology of those who play esports titles identifies that the majority play for casual reasons such as socializing, escapism, or fun (71.8%), while the remainder (28.2%) engage for competitive reasons (Hedlund, 2021). Increasingly, players play games such as CS:GO recreationally to achieve positive social outcomes (Behnke et al., 2021), yet the play experience can be shaped negatively with behaviors by other players, such as smurfing, trolling, griefing, and cheating, creating negative emotional impacts (Behnke et al., 2021). The playing esports audience is crucial to the base economics of the esports ecosystem (Andrews & Ritzer, 2018). ...
Article
Esport-based game titles, such as Counter-Strike:Global Offensive, represent platforms where players simultaneously consume and produce content as prosumers. Through peer-to-peer presumption, these players co-create value between themselves to drive a range of emotional and social outcomes. Smurfing is the act of higher skilled players utilizing alternate game accounts to play with lower skilled players resulting in unbalanced competitive experiences. This study combines an auto-netnographic approach with interviews to provide novel insights on this pervasive phenomenon. Through combining perspectives of regular players and those who engage in smurfing, three key themes are identified. Smurfing is embedded within gaming platforms, driven by complex motivations, and framed as cheating according to perspective.
... In a similar vein, research by Behnke et al. [8] explored which situations within video game play elicit positive and negative emotions among gamers. Behnke et al. [8] analyzed 652 responses from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) gamers using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) to identify situations where they reported feeling amused, enthusiastic, angry, or sad. ...
... In a similar vein, research by Behnke et al. [8] explored which situations within video game play elicit positive and negative emotions among gamers. Behnke et al. [8] analyzed 652 responses from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) gamers using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) to identify situations where they reported feeling amused, enthusiastic, angry, or sad. In amusing situations, gamers reported making mindless game mistakes or ridiculous shots during recreational play, while enthusiasm was reported during successful games in competitive settings. ...
... Taken together, the literature points to common themes concerning general gameplay factors, individual factors, and opponent factors that elicit emotions during competitive gameplay. In terms of general gameplay factors, negative emotions (e.g., depression, anger, frustration, tilt) are often associated with the loss of a match or objectives [8,36,43,58], breakdowns in team communication and performance [36,57,58], as well as game design related changes that affect the viability of certain character picks or gameplay strategies [36]. Comparatively, positive emotions (e.g., happiness, pride, vigor) are associated with favourable gameplay factors such as winning a match [36,43], securing objectives [43], character buffs [36], and cohesive team performance [36,57]. ...
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The massive growth of esports has vitalized the need to study human performance in competitive video gaming. The pressure of competitive play elicits a range of emotional experiences, which can affect players during and beyond a gaming session. In this work, we review the state of the literature concerning the role emotions play in esports performance as well as highlight coping strategies players use to regulate emotions during competitive play. We review the findings of N=32 peer-reviewed articles pertaining to emotions and esports, finding that the emotional experiences elicited by competitive play affect esports performance. In response, players attempt to regulate their emotions to maintain performance; however, efforts to do so vary, as they currently lack effective coping strategies. Lastly, we review the potential of technical interventions in esports training for improving emotion regulation among players. Our findings support knowledge development in esports, and present avenues towards promoting the emotional wellbeing of competitive gamers.
... This suggested that videogame engagement may contribute to need satisfaction and played an essential role in improving vitality during the time. Therefore, it may be argued that in-game engagement and involvement (Huang et al., 2019) are positively associated with subjective vitality during playing with implications in terms of emotional states and mental health (Behnke et al., 2021;Shoshani et al., 2021). This relationship would be aligned with Perry et al. (2018), who discovered that engagement in games with real-life and online-only friends was associated with mental health and social capital. ...
... This result does not contradict previous studies that already pointed at gaming engagement and accomplishments as positive factors for players' vitality (Formosa et al., 2022;Kosa & Uysal, 2021). Rather, this finding highlights the importance of emotions felt while playing for individual well-being (Behnke et al., 2021;Shoshani et al., 2021) and the need to monitor and evaluate in-game feelings to better understand the impact of digital entertainment on players' vitality. Finally, this positive association can be related to the increasing blending between virtuality and reality (Nardi, 2015). ...
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Research has provided evidence that online gaming can both positively and negatively impact players’ physical and mental health. However, few research studies have examined how game addiction, game community, and vitality felt while playing can inform well-being. This study addressed this gap by focusing on game players’ vitality, a construct that addresses both mental and physical health. The research, conducted with 704 online players, specifically examined the association between players’ enduring vitality and Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD), game community, and state-related vitality (experienced during gaming). The survey instruments included 1) the Internet Gaming Disorder short scale, 2) the Game Community of Inquiry Scale (GCoIS), and 3) the Game Subjective Vitality Scale. Findings highlighted the role of game community receptiveness in informing players’ vitality. In addition, in-game vitality and enduring vitality were found to be intertwined. Implications for future research and practice are provided based on these findings.
... Similarly, research found higher cortisol levels and cognitive anxiety before competition in expert players than nonexpert players (Mendoza et al., 2021) and increased heart rate (HR) during competition compared with pregame play (Andre et al., 2020;Koshy et al., 2020). From a different perspective, research highlighted a number of stressors (e.g., performance pressure) that players associated with stress responses, as well as positive and negative performance outputs (e.g., Behnke et al., 2021;Leis et al., 2022;Poulus et al., 2022aPoulus et al., , 2022bSharpe, Leis, et al., 2024. However, research on esports competition and whether stress can predict in-game performance is limited (e.g., Behnke, Gross, Kaczmare, 2020). ...
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One goal of sport psychology research is to assist athletes in adapting their training and competitive behavior to maintain or enhance high-level performance under stressful and competitive conditions. To extend this research into esports, a comprehensive understanding of the stress-performance relationship in esports is essential. This knowledge can subsequently guide future intervention studies focused on enhancing players' performance. This study aimed to explore the relationship between playing esports in competitive settings and psychological and physiological stress among professional League of Legends players. Unlike previous research focusing on non-competitive gameplay, we examined seven male professionals during training and competition, measuring perceived motivation and match importance , as well as perceived stress, affect, emotion, heart rate, heart rate variability, and respiratory rate. Data were collected before, during, and after gameplay, evaluating in-game performance (i.e., kill-death-assist ratio, gold, and self-rated performance). Significant differences were observed, with motivation and perceived match importance being greater during competition compared to training. Our findings substantiate that both psychological and physiological stress responses intensify during competitive gameplay in contrast to training. This supports existing theoretical and empirical research, emphasizing the intricate nature of the stress-performance relationship. Practical and theoretical applications are discussed.
... Further, it is crucial to note that for some players, these emotional responses can be overwhelming and even distressing, suggesting that while Spiritfarer can offer a deeply moving shared experience, it may not be suitable for all players, particularly those dealing with recent traumas or losses (Shaiman, 2020). The balance between shared empathic journeying and individual emotional readiness should be carefully considered when engaging with games like Spiritfarer and developers should consider this as little is known about which situations and gameplay elements and how they will elicit specific emotions (Behnke et al., 2021), especially for content that may be traumatic in nature (Younis & Fedtke, 2023). More research is needed in this area. ...
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... Tal vez cabría preguntarse si la fortaleza mental de los jugadores les permite mantenerse más horas consecutivas en la práctica de la actividad. Existen trabajos recientes que exploran las respuestas emocionales de los gamers, intentando dilucidar qué los entristece, enoja, entusiasma o divierte [2]. En la misma línea, hay trabajos exploratorios sobre un fenómeno conocido en el ámbito de los jugadores como tilt, caracterizado como una emoción negativa que afecta la experiencia de juego y las capacidades de decisión, relacionada con la frustración, y que puede ser causada por múltiples influencias del juego o de las personas involucradas [21]. ...
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... Increased attention of the demands placed on esports players has motivated researchers to develop their understanding of the influence of psychological concepts, including stress and coping (Leis & Lautenbach, 2020;Leis et al., 2022;Poulus et al., 2020Poulus et al., , 2021Poulus et al., , 2022, perceptions of training effectiveness (Abbott et al., 2022), and team cohesion and group communication (Swettenham & Whitehead, 2022;Tan et al. 2022). Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is an esport that places high demands on players, including a range of stressors (Smith et al., 2019), associations with mental ill health (Smith et al., 2022), tactics, precision, and teamwork (Shin et al., 2012), as well as eliciting a considerable range of emotions among players (Behnke et al., 2021). Indeed, recent research has highlighted the appeal of investigating CS:GO due to its capacity to log in-game events and its simplicity and predictability of core game mechanics (see Sharpe et al., 2023 for discussion). ...
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Significance Claims about how reported emotional experiences are geometrically organized within a semantic space have shaped the study of emotion. Using statistical methods to analyze reports of emotional states elicited by 2,185 emotionally evocative short videos with richly varying situational content, we uncovered 27 varieties of reported emotional experience. Reported experience is better captured by categories such as “amusement” than by ratings of widely measured affective dimensions such as valence and arousal. Although categories are found to organize dimensional appraisals in a coherent and powerful fashion, many categories are linked by smooth gradients, contrary to discrete theories. Our results comprise an approximation of a geometric structure of reported emotional experience.
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The common approach to the multiplicity problem calls for controlling the familywise error rate (FWER). This approach, though, has faults, and we point out a few. A different approach to problems of multiple significance testing is presented. It calls for controlling the expected proportion of falsely rejected hypotheses — the false discovery rate. This error rate is equivalent to the FWER when all hypotheses are true but is smaller otherwise. Therefore, in problems where the control of the false discovery rate rather than that of the FWER is desired, there is potential for a gain in power. A simple sequential Bonferronitype procedure is proved to control the false discovery rate for independent test statistics, and a simulation study shows that the gain in power is substantial. The use of the new procedure and the appropriateness of the criterion are illustrated with examples.
Conference Paper
Gamers are not a monolithic group; gaming preferences and motivations vary among gamers in important ways. An empirical model of gaming motivations allows developers and researchers to create more effective and engaging experiences for entertainment and serious games. We developed an online app and used an iterative process to create the Gamer Motivation Profile. Using survey data from over 250,000 gamers worldwide, we used factor analysis to develop an empirical framework of gaming motivations and a validated tool to measure those motivations. We identified 6 clusters of gaming motivations: Action (Excitement & Destruction), Social (Collaboration & Competition), Mastery (Strategy & Challenge), Achievement (Power & Completion), Creativity (Design & Discovery), and Immersion (Story & Fantasy). In this talk, we'll first describe the motivations we identified, present findings on the higher-order relationships among these motivations, how they vary by gender and age, and how they are related to the Big 5 personality traits. Respondents to the Gamer Motivation Profile also listed specific games they've enjoyed playing. In the second part of the talk, we'll present case studies of how we have applied this game audience data within the game industry to provide actionable insights for game marketing and production.