Identification and categorization of digital game experiences : a qualitative study integrating theoretical insights and player perspectives

Digital game experience is not a one-dimensional concept. Great variety exists in game genres and players, and game experiences will differ accordingly. To date, game experience is studied in a differentiated way, meaning that most studies focus on one speciﬁ c game experience dimension. The objective of our study was twofold. First, we wanted to obtain a comprehensive picture of ﬁ rst-hand experiences of playing digital games. We conducted six focus group interviews including different types of gamers with the aim of eliciting a wide array of lay-conceptualizations of game experience. Second, we aimed to develop a categorization of game experience dimensions. This was established by discussing and integrating theoretical and empirical ﬁ ndings. Our categorization revealed nine dimensions: enjoyment, ﬂ ow, imaginative immersion, sensory immersion, suspense, competence, tension, control and social presence. This categorization has relevance for both game scholars and game developers wanting to get to the heart of digital game experience.


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Moreover, most game experience dimensions mentioned in current gaming literature originate from other, related disciplines such as Human Technology Interaction (HTI), Virtual Reality (VR), Computer Mediated Communication (CMC), or positive psychology. Also, these experiences are often tested in experimental settings where game play is manipulated and steered into a certain intensity of a particular game experience. We summarize recent studies below. The main objective of this article is then to put these experiences to the test, employing a more bottom-up approach by letting gamers freely deliberate and articulate their emotions and experiences while playing digital games. As such, this study approaches the topic from a broad perspective, taking into account the multiple experiences concurrently.

Related Work on Digital Game Experience
Playing digital games is an increasingly popular form of media entertainment, of which enjoyment is one of the core experience dimensions (Vorderer et al., 2004(Vorderer et al., , 2006. Klimmt (2003) proposed that digital game enjoyment is based on three experiential factors: experience of effectance or immediate feedback to the player as a causal agent, cyclic feelings of suspense and relief, and the fascination from being drawn into an alternative reality or a fi ctional world. Klimmt et al. (2007a) empirically demonstrated that the experience of effectance is an important factor of game enjoyment. Their research further showed that the experience of control in a game had a more complex, non-linear relation to overall game enjoyment. They suggested that players strive to control a game but that the struggle for control, which is actually the challenge of a game, can also make playing enjoyable. Subsequent studies by Klimmt et al. (2009) also showed suspense to be a driver of game enjoyment.
The experience of being drawn into an alternative reality is often referred to as immersion (Calleja, 2011;Murray, 1998). Emri and Mäyrä (2005) studied immersion in a digital game context and proposed a model describing how it is experienced while people are playing. More concretely, their model consists of three different components of immersion: sensory, challenge-based and imaginative immersion (the SCI model). Sensory immersion refers to the multi-sensory properties of a game -the extent to which the surface features of a game have a perceptual impact on the user. Challenge-based immersion involves immersion in the cognitive and motor aspects of the game that are needed to meet the challenges the game poses. Finally, imaginative immersion refers to the immersion within the imaginary fantasy world created through the game, and depends on the richness of the narrative of the game. Brown and Cairns (2004) developed a somewhat different view on what immersion in a gaming context means. They carried out a number of in-depth interviews with gamers to fi nd out what they mean when they talk about immersion and analysed their data using grounded theory. Their results showed that, for most players, immersion equals the degree of involvement within a game. Accordingly, Brown and Cairns (2004) described a progression of three stages of immersion, indicating increasing levels of involvement: engagement, engrossment and total immersion (or presence). The level of immersion appears to depend on the path of time and is controlled by barriers that need to be removed before the next level of immersion can be experienced. Jennet et al. (2008) conceptualized immersion in a slightly different way. According to these authors, immersion differs from other engaging game experiences, such as fl ow, presence and cognitive absorption. They consider immersion as the so-called prosaic experience of engaging with a digital game. This implies that immersion happens if a person gets drawn into a game. Although immersion contributes to having a good game experience, it does not necessarily mean that the player has an optimal or fulfi lling experience (Jennet et al., 2008).
In contrast, an experience that does indicate an optimal experience, is fl ow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). This concept stems from the fi eld of positive psychology and was originally conceived to describe extremely positive 'peak' experiences in daily life (e.g. playing music, rock climbing, playing chess). Csikszentmihalyi (1990) described fl ow as a state in which skills and challenges are perfectly balanced, leading to an optimal experience and involving high levels of cognitive absorption or deep concentration. Furthermore, fl ow makes people forget about themselves and become totally immersed in the activity (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Flow is a prominent concept when deliberating about digital game experience (Keller and Bless, 2008;Sherry, 2004) as the specifi c nature of digital games matches closely with that of activities that Csikzentmihalyi (1990) outlined to be typically conducive to a state of fl ow. These are (a) having clear and concrete goals, (b) enabling actions that can be adjusted according to skill level or capabilities, (c) providing feedback on the score reached or the progress made and (d) possessing visual and auditory information or cues that can aid concentration and impede distraction (Sherry, 2004). Sweetser and Wyeth (2005) applied the concept of fl ow in a game enjoyment context. They propose a model of game design heuristics structured by the concept of fl ow and argue that each element of fl ow (e.g. concentration, challenge, skills, etc.) contributes to game enjoyment. They provided tentative evidence for their model by showing that highly rated video games scored better in terms of their game-fl ow characteristics compared to games that had received low ratings. Although we agree that fl ow is an important dimension of game experience, we think Sweetser and Wyeth's (2005) argument that fl ow can be equated to game enjoyment might be limited. First, game enjoyment represents a broader set of experiences besides fl ow (e.g. Klimmt's studies on effectance, control and suspense). Second, their argument is still tenuous since they did not study whether and how players actually experience more fl ow in highly rated games. A more recent experimental study by Weibel et al. (2008), in which fl ow was studied in relation to playing against a computer-controlled agent or a human-controlled avatar showed, however, that fl ow was an important mediator of game enjoyment. It is important to note, in this respect, that a state of fl ow is rare in everyday life -the exception rather than the rule. As noted above, the balance or perceived fi t between challenge and skills is central to the experience of fl ow. If challenges imposed by a digital game outpace the skills the gamer possesses, frustration will most likely be experienced. On the other hand, if a gamer's skills are too developed in comparison with the challenges imposed by a digital game, the experience of boredom will presumably occur. Both boredom and frustration are potential negative experiences that occur in a digital game context. Strangely enough, current game research does not devote much explicit attention to these negative game experiences. However, negative experiences such as frustration or tension (Gilleade and Dix, 2004) indisputably contribute to the challenge of a game and are presumably essential in order for the overall game experience to work. Consequently, a lot of successful games are designed to gradually evolve from negative emotions in the face of challenge to positive emotional experiences, such as fl ow, when the skills are in balance, and the challenge is overcome (Keeker et al., 2004;Ravaja et al., 2004). In a similar vein, Bryant and Davis (2006) have argued that gamers strive to maximize their pleasure, which often inevitably includes that they sacrifi ce immediate gratifi cation for the greater enjoyment that awaits them as soon as they master the next level. Jennet et al. (2008) further mentioned that the experience of immersion during game play also involved negative emotions such as uneasiness or anxiety. On the other hand, one of their experiments showed that nonimmersive games induced a negative experience of boredom.
One factor that is often presented as impeding the experience of fl ow or immersion in a game is the presence of other people, both as bystanders or as co-players (Sweetser and Wyeth, 2005). Ironically, digital gaming frequently takes place in social contexts and social motivations are important reasons why people become involved in game play (Jansz and Martens, 2005;Jansz and Tanis, 2007;Williams, 2006). Many games come with a multi-player mode, leading to competitive or collaborative play between co-located or online friends. De  argue that social, physical and media settings have an important impact on the particular experience of playing with others. Some studies have already shown that the specifi c nature of a social context may signifi cantly infl uence players' game experience (Bracken et al., 2005;de Kort et al., 2007;Gajadhar et al., 2008;Lim and Lee, 2009;Ravaja et al., 2006). These fi ndings were linked to the experience of social presence, a concept that stems from CMC literature and is defi ned as 'the sense of being with another' (Biocca et al., 2001). Gajadhar et al. (2008) illustrated that social presence mediated the effect of social setting on player experience and concluded that the presence of others enriches game experiences rather than being a disturbing factor for the experience of fl ow, a notion that was also supported by the above-mentioned study of Weibel et al. (2008).
Notwithstanding the fact that the game experience studies cited above have all made signifi cant contributions to the fi eld of digital gaming research, the question remains as to how prominent specifi c experiences are during typical, everyday sessions of game play, how different experiences are interrelated, and how they are dependent on specifi c contexts, modalities and different type of players.

Study Objectives
The objective of our study was twofold. First, we wanted to get a full account of fi rsthand experiences of gaming. We conducted focus group interviews with different types of gamers with the aim of obtaining a wide array of lay-conceptualizations of game experience. Focus group methodology is a qualitative research tool that is frequently used in social sciences to explore people's meanings, ways of understanding or experiences of a complex phenomenon (Lunt and Livingstone, 1996;Merton, 1987). One of the major strengths of focus group methodology is its exploratory nature. Further, focus groups are very useful in providing context and depth. Besides observing experiences and thoughts, the moderator can probe in order to acquire relevant background information (e.g. about motivations, contexts) on these experiences and thoughts. Given the diversity of individual differences with respect to play styles (Bartle, 1996) or motivations to play games (Yee, 2002(Yee, , 2006, focus groups can provide in-depth, contextual and motivational insights into the specifi c experiences of different types of gamers. Focus groups thus enabled us to explore differences in game experiences according to player type, game genre and context of play. Second, we wanted to unravel the different dimensions of game experience and develop a categorization. This was established by discussing theoretical and empirical fi ndings and consolidating these into a categorization of digital game experience.

Participants
We organized six focus groups (FG1-FG6) with three to fi ve participants each (N = 19). We recruited participants through the participants' database from the Human Technology Interaction group of Eindhoven University of Technology. The comparatively low number of participants allowed us to devote a maximum amount of time to letting them articulate their personal experiences with playing digital games. The composition of the focus groups differed according to several variables such as gender, age, occupational status and gaming frequency (i.e. frequent gamers or people who game at least once a week and infrequent gamers or people who game at least once a month; see Table  1). FG1 had fi ve participants of whom two were female. FG2 consisted of three male participants. FG3 and FG4 both had four male participants. FG5 had two male and two female participants. FG6 had three female participants. Participants' ages ranged from 19 to 37 years. With respect to professional status, FG1 and FG2 consisted of undergraduate students, FG3 included both undergraduate and graduate students, FG4 was composed of working people over 30 years of age. FG5 also consisted of working people, aged 28-32 years. FG6 had both undergraduates and one job-seeking participant. Two focus groups (FG1 and FG2) included infrequent gamers, two focus groups (FG3 and FG4) consisted of frequent gamers and two focus groups (FG5 and FG6) had a mix of frequent and infrequent gamers. This combination of uniform and diverse focus group compositions with respect to gender and playing frequency allowed us to compare utterances within and between the different gamer groups.

Procedure
The focus groups followed a fi xed script that was structured in the following way: Introductory round: The moderator and the assistant moderator presented themselves and gave a brief description of the main goal of the focus groups. More concretely, they explained that the focus group was about digital games and player experience, and participants could freely talk about how they experienced digital gaming. Then participants presented themselves, giving their name, game frequency and the type of games they usually played.
Individual task: We asked each participant to refl ect for fi ve minutes on what they considered to be the most prominent game experiences for themselves. We explicated that by 'game experiences' we meant: all kinds of emotions, feelings, or thoughts that come into play while playing games. Participants wrote these experiences down on sticky notes. We also asked them to indicate their most favourite game and the game they had played most recently. After this, all sticky notes were pasted in the middle of the table to serve as a starting point and inspiration source for the next stage, the group discussion.
Group discussion: The group discussion was the most crucial part of our focus groups. In these group discussions participants could freely talk and interact with each other about their game experiences. The discussion was clustered around three core questions by means of a semi-structured questionnaire. Additional questions could be posed, probing for clarifi cation or more in-depth insights. The three core questions were: (1) On what occasions do you typically start gaming? (probing both motivations and opportunities for game play); (2) What do you experience or feel while gaming? (probing in-game experiences); (3) What do you experience or how do you feel after gaming? (probing post-game experiences). The moderator further probed the experiences that were reported by each participant individually. Additional sticky notes were used when new experiences were mentioned. Note that in the current article, we only report the fi ndings for in-game experiences. Results on post-game experiences are beyond the scope of this article and are reported elsewhere (Poels et al., 2010).
Group task: At the end of the group discussion participants were asked to cluster and rank all game experiences that were reported on the sticky notes depending on how central they are to gaming in general (i.e. across games). They wrote down all experiences on a large sheet of paper with the most prominent experiences in the centre of the sheet and the less relevant experiences closer to the margins of the sheet. As such, sheets from the different focus groups could be compared and this aided us in structuring the diversity of experiences mentioned by the participants.
Each focus group took about 90 minutes and participants were rewarded with €10 for their participation. All focus group interviews were recorded and transcribed. Citations we report in the results section are all translated from Dutch. Subsequently, transcriptions were subjected to a thematic analysis in which we looked for repeatedly mentioned game motivations, opportunities and experiences.

Results
This results section fi rst describes opportunities and motivations for game play, and then continues with game experiences while playing, the core topic of this focus group study. The results section ends with a description our categorization scheme of digital game experience.

Opportunities and Motivations for Game Play
The occasions on which participants typically start gaming varied considerably. A substantial number of participants reported that they often started gaming upon  Another motivation that they put forward was more social in nature. Some of the participants reported that they often played games when they were with friends, for example, before or after going out.
I rarely game on my own. When I game it is a social event where we sit on the couch, with beer and chips. This usually happens the hours before we go out. ( Some of the more frequent gamers reported an additional occasion that was not mentioned by any of the less frequent gamers. They started to play games in a coordinated way, making appointments with friends and competing with them in a team. For those gamers, the type of game they played differed with each occasion. More concretely, they played short games when feeling bored or after a busy day. In contrast, long games were scheduled and played in teams. Other, more frequent gamers did not report participating in offi cial game competitions, but they mentioned organizing competitions between friends. These activities were planned weeks beforehand. Notably, these organized events seemed to be more recognized by the somewhat older frequent players, who also reported having no (more) time to be involved in the real organized competitions due to responsibilities at home or work.
A couple of times a year, we organize 'game nights' in which we gather with four friends. We then start up our own game competition using various games. We game all night long and our aim is to fi nd who's the best all-round gamer. (Male participant, FG4, 31 years)

Game Experiences while Playing
Almost all participants mentioned fun, amusement and relaxation as most prominent game experiences. However experiences of fun were rarely mentioned on their own. As we illustrate in the next citations, other experiences are often mentioned together with fun. For example, experiences of fun were often related to the concept of immersion, that is, being drawn into a game world. They were linked to escape from reality and getting immersed into a fantasy world. We refer to this as imaginative immersion. Further, concentration and tension were mentioned as in-game experiences. Participants reported that these experiences were often related to challenge and diffi culty of the game. Most participants agreed that concentration and effort are needed in order to perform well in games. Interestingly, some frequent gamers mentioned 'being in the zone' as a state of full concentration in which performance and competence are at their best. These descriptions bear resemblance to the concept of fl ow in the sense that they involve a state of optimal performance and concentration. Notably, frequent gamers who participate in game competitions often distinguished between experiences playing games purely for fun and experiences playing competition games with their team. Particularly, immersion and concentration seemed to differ between those two types of game play. Interestingly, these gamers reported that they played console games when playing for fun and PC games when competing in serious game competitions.
With MMORPG and FPS you need to sit close to the screen, they are very exacting. If you meet with friends to have some fun together, it's much nicer to lean back on the couch, the game triggers the fun, but it's also about other things then. We have a drink and we chat. The game play is purely for fun. When we play games on the PC it is much more serious, you need to be very concentrated then, and strictly focused on the game. (Male participant, FG3, 29 years) Also, negative experiences are stronger if the game play gets more serious.
Game competitions are dead serious, as serious as a soccer game Holland-Germany. You can really feel aggression, or anger. When you play for fun, it is more informal, having fun is the dominant experience. (Male participant, FG3, 29 years) A substantial part of the reported game experiences related to gaming in a social context. Experiences that are typically mentioned in this context are competition and enjoyment with others. Participants reported that competition instigated feelings of 'tension', 'nervousness' and 'teasing one another', while at the same time, they perceived competition as 'fun', 'having a laugh' and 'being connected with others'.
It is always a lot of fun! For example when we play Mario Cart with four friends, there's a lot of friendly banter. It is very funny if one player gets picked on by three others. That enhances the enjoyment you have with others. (Male participant, FG1, 22 years) Emotions evoked through competition with co-located people were reported as much stronger than emotions through competition with the computer, or through competition with online people. Also, participants reported that they put more effort into the game when they play against co-located friends. Moreover, they said that they experienced more tendencies to take 'revenge'. This was attributed to their physical presence, enabling non-verbal and verbal communication and physical contact.
Playing against the computer is totally different from playing against a friend who sits next to you. You can nudge him, give comments … (Male participant, FG2, 28 years) 123 123 When you play with strangers on the internet, you miss a part of the communication. You cannot fi gure out whether they play for fun or not. You cannot tease them. (Male participant,FG2,24 years) Social experience and connectedness between players is extremely important for frequent players who cooperate in a team. Additional experiences that emerge in this specifi c type and context of game play are -besides the more general experiences of fun and immersion -power, control, thrill and satisfaction.
It is nice to play in a team; we often make a lot of jokes and fun together. The urge to build something evokes pleasure. The feeling of getting more and more power and more control on your environment is also part of the fun; and also that you get more status within your environment. (Male participant,FG3,29 years) It is important that you feel that you are one team. For me realism is important so you can fully imagine yourself in the game. It causes more of a thrill. If I experience that I am really someone in the game and for my team, it gives me a feeling of satisfaction. (Male participant, FG3, 26 years)

Categorization of Digital Game Experiences
We combined knowledge and insights gathered from both theoretical fi ndings and focus group explorations, with the aim of consolidating these into a categorization scheme of digital game experience. Most dimensions that we discussed in our literature review also surfaced spontaneously in one way or another during the focus groups. Our fi nal categorization revealed nine specifi c game experience dimensions (see Table 1). We explain this categorization below.
Overall enjoyment is the fi rst dimension of our categorization scheme. Gaming is fun, it is a leisure activity and thus enjoyable. Further, people clearly get drawn into a game; be it by the challenge the game poses, the story it entails or the overwhelming environment it creates (or a combination of these three). Flow is the second dimension in our categorization scheme. Similar to what we fi nd in literature (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990;Sweetser and Wyeth;, fl ow has to do with the challenge of a game and involves a state of optimal concentration and performance. With respect to immersion, we partly follow Ermi and Mäyrä's SCI model (2005). Concretely, our categorization makes a distinction between sensory immersion (i.e. related to the sound and graphics) and imaginative immersion (i.e. related to the story of the game). This distinction was also clearly made by participants in our focus groups. We considered challenge-based immersion to largely overlap with our fl ow dimension. Related but distinguishable from fl ow and immersion is the dimension of suspense. Although the word suspense itself was not explicitly mentioned by the gamers in our focus groups, the experience of suspense has been studied in current game literature as an important component of game enjoyment (Klimmt et al., 2007b). Moreover, experiences typically involving suspense, like tension, pressure, relief, etc., were mentioned by the participants. Hence, we use the term 'suspense' for these experiences and incorporate this dimension in our categorization. Next, we included competence as a specifi c game experience dimension. Games are often goal-directed. The fulfi lment of a goal or mastery of a specifi c skill involve perceived competence, which evokes positive emotions (e.g., pride, euphoria). On the other hand, failing to reach these goals often leads to negative affect, such as frustration and anger. Control is another dimension in our categorization scheme, referring to the ability to have power over the game world, most frequently mentioned in the context of simulation games. Finally, since experiences related to playing with others were often mentioned within the focus groups, our scheme includes social experiences as a game experience dimension.

Discussion and Conclusion
We presented a study on digital game experience in which we combined theoretical considerations with game experiences that surfaced through focus groups. This qualitative and exploratory approach has several advantages. We were able to study fi rst-hand game experiences as they were articulated by gamers themselves. This provided us with a rich and varied set of experiences which enabled us to get a full account of game experience and the dimensions it consists of. Most dimensions of our categorization scheme had been already discussed in existing gaming literature, albeit mostly in a focused, differentiated way. Experiences that are already extensively discussed in current gaming literature, like overall enjoyment, immersion, competence and control (e.g. Ermi and Mäyrä, 2005;Jennet el al, 2008;Klimmt, 2003;Vorderer et al., 2006) were also mentioned as primary experiences throughout our focus groups. Further, fl ow was mentioned by some players as a positive peak experience, or a state of optimal performance in which all attention is drawn into the game. Given the central place of fl ow in current game experience literature it is interesting to note that in our study fl ow was reported as being an exceptional state, not very common for all players. Although still understudied in current gaming literature, a variety of negative experiences did surface through our focus groups. Most typically, frustration and tension when challenges in a game are high and seemingly impossible to overcome, or boredom when a game is too repetitive or too easy for a player. We call for future studies to investigate the particular nature of these negative experiences in more depth. As recently outlined in social gaming literature Weibel et al., 2008), the specifi c nature of playing with or against others, and the accompanying experiences, both positive (connectedness, friendly banter) and negative (disappointment, pressure), were also mentioned in our focus groups. Building on and contributing to current gaming literature, this study aimed to present a comprehensive overview of how it feels to play digital games. An important contribution of this study was the consolidation of current insights from gaming literature with fi rst-hand verbalizations as expressed by the gamers themselves. Our results indicate that the nature and the intensity of specifi c digital game experiences relate to several factors such as game setting (single vs. colocated vs. online play), game motivation (e.g. game competitions vs. playing games to kill time), game genre, and other non-game-related variables (e.g. being occupied with daily activities). Besides differences between different types of players, which mainly included frequent versus infrequent players, these experiences also seemed to vary within players, depending on the occasion and the motivation of game play. We did not fi nd specifi c differences according to gender of the players. This is an interesting fi nding since a number of studies have addressed gender differences in game play and play styles (Williams et al., 2009). It could be that the overall gender differences found are overruled when taking into account frequency or avidness of play. Further studies are needed to investigate this issue.
We are fully aware that our categorization may not be exhaustive and is also limited in the sense that it only describes dimensions of game experience and does not show how these are interconnected. Further research is needed to corroborate correlational and even causal relationships between the different game experience dimensions. Also, future investigations should focus on the interplay between game experiences and different game genres, player types and player motivations. Ultimately, a comprehensive model of digital game experience including all game experiences and moderating variables can be developed.
Nevertheless, the categorization as it now stands has relevance for both game theorists and game developers. Our categorization can aid in determining which concrete experiences or feelings are relevant in research settings that require experimental manipulations of player experiences. This categorization can also function as a starting point or inspiration source in developing a shared understanding and vocabulary of different game experience dimensions. Current gaming literature still lacks a common conceptualization of game experience (Calvillo-Gamez et al., 2010). We call for further research and cooperation among game researchers, since a shared defi nition of basic concepts is essential in order for a scientifi c fi eld to progress.
Game developers can rely on this categorization as a tool or a checklist to design games that are able to evoke a richer spectrum of game experiences. They will further benefi t from future advancements and theorizing within the domain of digital game experience, for example, the interplay between different game experience dimensions (e.g. the interplay between fl ow, challenge and negative affect) or the understanding of a specifi c game experience for different types of users (e.g. game enjoyment for avid versus casual players).
To summarize, digital game experience is multi-dimensional. Actual game experiences range from very broad positive and negative emotions to experiences that are more specifi cally related to play, challenge or to fantasy and alternative realities. First-hand articulations of emotions and experiences of digital game play, as explored in this article, enabled us to make a categorization of dimensions of digital game experience which lie at the heart of playing digital games.