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al medium. Following on symbolic interactionism and pragmatism, French sociologist Louis Quéré formulated a model to understand communication,
the praxeologic approach, questioning the informational models that are still in use, for instance, in media effects studies. Therefore I propose an approach
that distances from the limitation of media effects studies commonly used within videogames research field. From Quéré, I move to the writings of Brazilian
researcher Vera França on the applications and contributions of symbolic interactionism, pragmatism and the praxeological approach to an understanding
of people relationship with media. Her approach deals with the “subjects in/of communication”, how we engage in a mutually affective relationship with
language, the other, and the symbolic. To summarize these contributions I propose a reconceptualization of videogames that moves beyond the limiting,
formalist categories of ludology and narratology, considering videogames as a social and cultural inscribed practice of sociability, as a configurative medi‑
um. I argue that configuration does not limit itself to the cybernetic loop of gameplay moment, as argued by Dovey & Kennedy (2006 : 109), but is rather
a phenomena that occurs previous to and after play as well. Configuring is not only action, but a series of interactive processes in which the videogame-me‑
dium is the materiality that allows for gaming to emerge; gaming moment is the unique interactional affordance of videogames, the action-based process
that differentiates this practice from others; and videogames culture is responsible for a series of configurative practices that shape our relationship to gam‑
ing as it belongs to a wider network of relations. These processes are constantly in a triadic relationship in as much they are simultaneously independent,
correlated and inscribed in each other.
PP 110
The Enjoyment of Shooting Games: The Role of Perceived Realism
R. Daneels
1
, S. Malliet
1,2
, W. Ribbens
3
1
University of Antwerp, Department of Communication Sciences, Antwerp, Belgium
2
LUCA School of Arts, Play & Game research group - Campus C-Mine, Genk, Belgium
3
Erasmus University Rotterdam, Department of Media and Communication, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Understanding the enjoyment of (violent) digital games is a complex topic, with various social and psychological processes at its foundation1. A recur‑
rent theme throughout various conceptualizations2,3,4 is that players experience more enjoyment when they feel more present in the virtual world5,
for instance through high audiovisual quality or through similarities with the real world6,7. Recently, studies from a moral psychology perspective have
suggested a reverse argumentation: the more players succeed in mentally distancing themselves from virtual acts of violence, the more they experience
enjoyment8. This would imply that increased realism limits game enjoyment , as it becomes more difficult to remove moral objections towards in-game
violence when it is perceived as ‘more real’9. This study explores how perceived game realism, as a multidimensional concept, can operate as an underlying
factor, allowing to reconcile the findings of both perspectives. Ribbens10 distinguishes six dimensions of perceived game realism: simulation realism,
freedom of choice, social realism, character involvement, audiovisual pervasiveness, and authenticity. In relation to the theoretical perspectives above, we
hypothesize that: (1)‘Perceptual pervasiveness’and‘freedom of choice’will positively influence digital game enjoyment of virtual violence (2)‘Social realism’
will negatively influence digital game enjoyment of virtual violence Furthermore, we question whether the other dimensions (character involvement, sim‑
ulational realism, and authenticity) will influence the experienced digital game enjoyment of virtual violence in a positive or negative way. An online survey
was conducted among 240 players of‘Bioshock: Infinite’(2013) and‘Call of Duty: Ghosts’(2013), incorporating the following measurement scales: perceived
realism (α: .79 – .89), enjoyment (α: .91), Game Experience Questionnaire (GEQ) (α: .79 – .93), and motivation (α: .78). A stepwise regression model was
built with enjoyment as dependent variable (F/df: 31,31/10, R2: .600) and the following independent variables (with corresponding standardized beta
values and significance): step 1 – background variables (education: -.031, p<="" p="">
PP 111
Relative Enjoyment Scale for Primary School Children (RES-C): Development and Testing of Reliability, Validity and Sensitivity
J. van Looy
1
, E. Núñez Castellar
2
, E. Houttekier
1
1
iMinds-MICT-Ghent University, Communication Sciences, Gent, Belgium
2
Department of Data Analysis / iMinds-MICT-Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
This paper documents the development and validation of the Relative Enjoyment Scale for assessing game experience of primary school Children (RES-C).
Research has shown that young children often lack the cognitive ability, mental energy or social independence to provide reliable and valid responses to
traditional, verbal language-based questionnaires. Hence they often resort to providing likely or safe rather than accurate responses, referred to as satisfic‑
ing in the literature. This is a huge problem when trying to asses player experience in relation to entertainment or educational games, for example when
seeking evidence for the effectiveness of a serious game in terms of motivational power. In order to improve reliability of self-report experience measures by
reducing satisficing in young children, a straightforward 8-item combined visual and verbal differential scale was developed. This new type of instrument
aims to account for the socio-cultural embeddedness of experience by juxtaposing the stimulus with eight familiar activities in the lives of young children.
The detailed procedure for identifying these activities is described and the resulting scale is validated in two experimental studies assessing the effective‑
ness of serious games for young children, one dealing with mental calculation and the other with foreign language vocabulary training (total N = 161).
Results indicate that RES-C provides more reliable, interval-level, normally distributed data when compared with current instruments such as the smileyo‑
meter and shows high content, concept and criterion-related validity. Furthermore, results indicate that it is more sensitive than existing methods by being
able to detect variation in enjoyment between gaming and traditional learning experimental conditions where traditional methods failed to do so. Hence
we believe that we have developed a new type of self-report instrument which is able to measure enjoyment with children more reliably and which shows
great promise for other areas of experience research, also with other groups with specific needs.