Novice

Female

Early 30s

Does not play many video games

Introduction

Subject 1 demonstrates some interesting findings. Her EDA exhibits the closest match between the signal produced during the initial gameplay and the review of the experience afterwards. Her corresponding signals could be said to "rhyme" - the shapes of her EDA in the bottom signal recreate the shapes of the signal above, although of reduced magnitude. It is impossible to know exactly what this means, but it could be that Subject 1 was readily re-experiencing her gameplay experience while watching the video.

Events 1 & 2

Event 1 was an initial frustration event. The subject was unable to figure out aspects of the interface and was repeatedly clicking on a quest-giver, but nothing was happening. She says, "I was pretty sure I wasn't playing the game yet." In Event 2, the subject calls for assistance from the experimenter and receives it. She recalled being "confused," but not "frustrated."

Event 3

Event 3 is a roughly five minute stretch in which the subject was exploring the space of the game and looking for an in game character for her quest. She was figuring out how to move around and figuring out the mouse interface, including how to use various mouseover tooltips in the game. She reported that she had been thinking, "There's gotta be a better way to do this." Although she reported no strong emotions on this slope, she reported an "aha" moment and relief when finding the character she was looking for at the end of that event.

Event 4

Event 4 was the completion of an in game task assigned to her by a game character, the killing of "the tiki things." As a side note, this subject reinforced her novice status throughout discussion, for instance referring to certain enemies by abstractions such as "tiki things."

Event 5

Event 5, the highest peak during gameplay, was a moment when family members interrupted the experiment because they were leaving from a shared holiday vacation. It is unclear whether the radical leap is entirely due to emotional response as the subject had to stand to hug family goodbye and may be a motion artifact as a result. However, the hugs, when the subjects arms would have been in motion the most, took place after the peak.

Event 6

In Event 6, the subject is repeatedly trying to kill her first difficult enemy. She described herself as initially "alert" and "worried" in this moment. On repeatedly failing in this task she said that she was challenged, then annoyed, then bored. Still, she was determined - she said, "I wanted to go back and win."

General Discussion

After watching the moments chosen by the researcher, the subject was asked some general questions about her experience (marked "General Qs" in the above figure). The subject related that she understood how the game could be compelling, but that she likely won't play again. She said, "I like interacting with people, or thinking about relationships - you know, reading books or spending time with friends...this didn't tap into that." It should be noted that during this section of the interview, when discussing things that are personally meaningful to her, her EDA is the highest of any time during the interview.