International Hobo, a game design consultancy company, asked this very question in a survey on their website. They wanted to find out just how gamers felt while playing video games and whether they were even aware of any emotions going on during gameplay.
The questionnaire also asked if gamers actively purchased games to fulfill these emotions.
The survey received 1,040 responses and of the top 10 answers, people put "amusement" as the top emotion they get from playing video games. The word obviously could also be another word for "fun."
Chris Bateman, managing director for International Hobo said, "The fewest number of people responded that they had no experience of amusement in videogames (just 1.7 percent) while a whopping 92.6 percent gave this emotion one of the top two responses, and 39.7 percent stating they actively sought out this feeling."
So what is he saying here? Basically that gamers feel that they’re having a good time when playing and that they like to play games because of this. It’s a good thing this study wasn’t backed by millions of dollars by the government because most of us already knew that.
In the top 10 list of what people feel when they play games, from top to bottom are, amusement, contentment, excitement, curiosity, wonderment, fiero (the feeling of triumph over adversity), surprise, naches (the feeling of pride and accomplishment of one’s student or children), relief, and bliss.
Although most of the top 10 responses were pretty predictable, the inclusion of "naches" was probably the most odd. But after some further thought, the feeling makes sense if you are playing an RPG or a game that requires you to level up a character.
So, have you been feeling "naches" lately?
[via gamespot]
