Home papers 337.0

Human-Environment Relationships in Alba: A Typological Analysis of Player Engagement in Steam Reviews

First author: Lu
Year: 2023


Abstract

This paper focuses on the player experiences of the game Alba: A Wild Life Adventure. We analyze players’ reviews of the game and their profiles in an integrated way to investigate opportunities of using digital games to engage players in the issue of human-environment relationship. The analytical results indicate the players reflect on environmental issues in their reviews. Our findings yield implications on several issues including 1) the importance of immersive design and narrative in terms of engaging players; 2) instead of classifying a game as “serious” or “entertainment” based on the intentions behind the game development, more emphasis should be puton the player’s experiences; and 3) the role of video games in parenting.


Details

Language: English
Country of affiliation: Finland


Published in: Proceedings of DiGRA 2023
Publication type: Conference proceeding


Source: https://dl.digra.org/index.php/dl/article/view/1931


Games

No Results

Franchises

No Records




Studies

Description: Data scrape of user profile data based on game reviews, collected via Steam API

Research type: Non-experimental
Data type: Mixed


Comparator: none
Control group: no
Pilot study: no
Pre/post measures used: no
Follow-up: no


Sample type: Steam reviews and profiles
Sample size: 1,356
Power analysis: no
Sample countries: null


Games studied: Alba: A Wildlife Adventure


Franchises studied: null


Study outcomes: Ingame interactions, Reflecting ecological issues