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The perceived meaning of the video game experience: An

exploratory study

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DOI: 10.1037/a0033828

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Psychology of Popular Media Culture © 2013 American Psychological Association
2014, Vol. 3, No.2, 110-126 2160-4134114/$12.00 001: 1O.1037/a0033828

The Perceived Meaning of the Video Game Experience:

An Exploratory Study

Christopher A. Oswald, Chris Prorock, and Shane M. Murphy

Western Connecticut State University

Psychological research on video game participation has focused on understanding the

effects of games on players, with the content of the game described by researchers, This
media effects approach has been criticized as unnecessarily restricting the scope of
psychological research on video games. It is suggested that psychology research can
benefit from adopting an approach that seeks to understand the experience of game
participants, as is often done in media and communications research. The present study
surveyed undergraduates and respondents from a computer gaming Web site and asked
them to describe what their most recent gaming experience meant to them, A qualitative
analysis of the 173 participants revealed 57 themes that best captured these gaming
experience descriptions, falling into six general categories: Emotional Responses,
Game Play, Social, Outcomes of Game Play, Goals, and Personal Qualities. The results
confirm previous research findings that video game participation is an emotionally
enjoyable experience, which incorporates a strong social dimension, but they also
indicate that video game play is highly goal-directed. Self-determination theory, which
seeks to understand intrinsically motivated behavior in terms of the psychological
needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, was suggested as the most relevant
theoretical framework for understanding these results. Descriptions of game meaning
by players were varied and complex, and it is suggested that future psychological
research in this field incorporate more detailed assessment of player experiences in addition
to the traditional approach of analyzing game content. New assessment techniques such as
observation and objective measurement of in-game behavior should be included in psy-
chological research studying video game play.

Keywords: qualitative research, self-determination theory, media effects, video games, violence

There has been tremendous growth in the
popularity of electronic games since arcade
games and early home console systems first
appeared in the 1970s and 1980s (Williams,
2002). Games are now played on platforms such
as the PC, console systems, Web sites, smart-
This article was published Online First November 4,
2013.
Christopher A. Oswald, Chris Prorock, and Shane M.
Murphy, Department of Psychology, Western Connecticut
State University.
Christopher A. Oswald is now at the School of Education,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
We thank Dan Barrett, Bryan Murphy, and Christopher
Ferguson for their helpful suggestions on earlier drafts of
this article.
Correspondence concerning this article should be ad-
dressed to Shane M. Murphy, Department of Psychology,
Western Connecticut State University, 181 White Street,
Danbury, CT 06810. E-mail: murphys@wcsu.edu
phones and cell phones, tablets, and handheld
devices (Chatfield, 2010), and there is remark-
able variety in the types of games we play.
These games have also been a popular object of
study for psychologists. For over 30 years,
mainstream psychological research has tended
to focus on either the effects of playing these
games on players' subsequent thoughts, feel-
ings, and behavior, an approach known as the
"media effects" approach to research (Lee &
Peng, 2006), or on the motives that drive game
play (Olson, 2010),
This media effects approach to studying
video game participation has come under in-
creasing criticism from psychology researchers
(Przybylski, Rigby, & Ryan, 2010), who argue
that it has led to a restrictive focus on certain
types of games (those with violent content).
Currently, there is a vigorous debate concerning
the outcome of the psychological research in
this area, with some research (e.g., Anderson &

110
 VIDEO GAME MEANING
Bushman, 2001; Anderson et al., 2008; Bush-
man & Anderson, 2002; Bushman & Gibson,
2011; Gentile, Coyne, & Walsh, 2011) suggest-
ing a causal link between playing violent video
games and subsequent aggression and violence,
while other studies (e.g., Ferguson, 2007, 2009;
Ferguson, Colwell, Mlacic, Milas, & Mlacic,
2011; Gunter & Daly, 2012; Sherry, 2001; von
Salisch, Vogelgesang, Kristen, & Oppl, 2011)
find no causal link or indicate that the relation-
ship is small or unpredictable. Some studies find
both positive and negative effects on prosocial
behavior, with the prosocial effects more likely
when children play video games with parents
(Coyne, Padilla-Walker, Stockdale, & Day,
2011). This issue even reached the Supreme
Court, which in Brown v EMA in 2011 decided
that video games are protected under the First
Amendment and their sale to minors or others
cannot be prohibited due to concerns of promot-
ing violence (Ferguson, 2013). The Court con-
cluded that psychological research suggesting
that video game play causes violence was meth-
odologically flawed, did not show causation,
and addressed, at best, "miniscule real-world
effects" (Brown vEMA, 2011, p. 13) rather than
the issue of social violence, concerns that have
been raised by other researchers (Ferguson,
2009).
A second criticism of the media effects ap-
proach in psychology is that it has misplaced the
research focus on the games rather than the
players (Lee & Peng, 2006; Weber, Ritterfield,
& Kostygina, 2006). Some media and commu-
nications scholars contend that the meaning of
video game play is critical to understanding the
effects of participation and should be a major
research focus. Jenkins (2006) suggests that the
media effects "model is one of stimulus-
response" that overlooks the role of the player
(p. 22) and suggests replacing it with models
based on understanding meanings, which
"emerge through an active process of interpre-
tation-they reflect our conscious engagement,
they can be articulated into words, and they can
be critically examined" (p. 20). In recent years,
researchers in fields as diverse as anthropology,
education, linguistics, instructional design, dis-
course, semiotics, drama, information science,
and game design have published much research,
from a variety of perspectives, examining
player experiences in video games (Gee, 2005;
Steinkuehler, 2006; Van Eck, 2008), but little of
III
this research has made its way into the main-
stream psychological literature on video games
or has informed public statements by psycho-
logical organizations such as the American Psy-
chological Association's (2005) resolution on
Violence in Video Games and Interactive Media
(APA, 2005). This resolution has been criti-
cized by some researchers as greatly overstating
its recommendations based on available re-
search (Ferguson, 2013; Murphy, 2009). Grad-
ually, alternative psychological models and
research are emerging that emphasize the cen-
trality of player meaning in understanding video
game play (Murphy, 2007; Przybylski et al.,
2010).
This study seeks to analyze the entire spec-
trum of responses of a set of players describing
the video game experience in their own words,
within psychologically meaningful categories.
To this end, the study is modeled after research
studies that have adopted a qualitative approach
to examining the experiences of participants in
recreational activities such as walking and fig-
ure skating (Crust, Keegan, Piggott, & Swan,
2011; Scanlan, Stein, & Ravizza, 1989), based
on the argument that a feasible research ap-
proach for understanding video game participa-
tion is to adopt a sport psychology perspective,
viewing video games as a recreational activity
(Murphy, 2009).
Qualitative research methods are particularly
appropriate for learning more about individual
interpretations of and reactions to the experi-
ence of interest (Dale, 1996; Patton, 1990).
There is a substantial body of emerging quali-
tative research across a wide spectrum of video
game issues (Wolf & Perron, 2003), although
the qualitative research in the mainstream psy-
chological literature has focused almost exclu-
sively on studying player motivations when
choosing engagement in video games rather
than other potential activities (Olson, 2010).
This motivational research is mostly guided by
existing theories of motivation and is not di-
rected specifically at developing an understand-
ing of the game experience from the player's
viewpoint, but it does provide a broad perspec-
tive on participants' experiences when playing.
Sherry, Lucas, Greenberg, and Lachlan
(2006) used a qualitative focus group approach
in the first phase of their research, focusing on
the motivations for video game play with a
sample of undergraduates aged 18 to 22 years,
112 OSW ALD, PROROCK,
interviewed in small groups. This research sug-
gested that video games are played to gratify
such motives as competition, challenge, social
interaction, diversion from reality, fulfilling
fantasies, and achieving an exciting state of
arousal. Funk, Chan, Brouwer, and Curtiss
(2006), using a biopsychosocial framework, in-
terviewed a child and an adult sample of game
players to understand the physical, psychologi-
cal, and social benefits and negative conse-
quences of playing video games. For children,
the psychological gains described included ac-
complishment and pride, competition, entertain-
ment, absorption, fantasizing about game char-
acters, and feelings of excitement; for adults,
psychological gains reported included stress re-
lief and relief from boredom, exhilaration, and a
feeling of excitement at being able to engage in
activities that are proscribed in real-life, such as
rule-breaking, defiance of authority, and driving
fast. Psychological losses for children included
being scared, frequent frustration, and worrying
about the possible negative effects of a game,
and for adults, frustration, impulsive behavior,
procrastination, and becoming obsessed with a
game.
Kutner, Olson, Warner, and Hertzog (2008)
conducted focus groups with adolescent boys
aged 12 to 14 years and their parents, focusing
particularly on attitudes toward video games
with violent content. They found that while the
boys were aware of the potential for harmful
influence, they did not think that they would be
negatively affected by video game play. Olson,
Kutner, and Warner (2008) reported on further
analyses of the responses of these boys and an
additional sample recruited from boy's clubs.
They found that boys were attracted to violent
content games as a way of fantasizing about
power and fame, as a means of challenging
themselves and mastering game skills, as a ve-
hicle to deal with negative emotions such as
anger and frustration, and by the attraction of
the many social interactions offered by video
game play.
These qualitative studies provide important
insight into the way in which video games are
experienced by participants, but they are guided
by a defined framework provided by research-
ers, such as asking why gamers play certain
types of games, or seeking to understand the
gains and losses of the players. The present
research project seeks to build on these prior
AND MURPHY
studies while focusing solely on the meaning
that video game players ascribe to their play.
This is an exploratory study, designed to assess
players' self-reports of meaning, to determine if
previous research has been able to identify all
the categories of meanings players use in de-
scribing their own play experiences, and to
identify possible novel interpretations of game
meaning not previously categorized. We hope
to provide a platform for a wider discussion of
game meaning in the mainstream psychological
literature.
Method
Participants
Sample 1. Students from a small northeast-
ern liberal arts state university were asked to
participate in this study. Institutional review
board approval was obtained and all AP A eth-
ical guidelines were followed. Students were
given a written survey involving several ques-
tionnaires about their video game play and com-
pleted it in a classroom for partial course credit.
Students < 18 years of age were excluded from
participation owing to informed consent issues
and some participants who did not play video
games were not able to respond to the questions,
leaving a final pool of 92 participants out of an
original sample of 109 students. There were 48
males and 44 females in this sample (mean
age = 21 years, standard deviation = 4 years,
minimum age = 18 years, maximum age = 48
years).
Sample 2. To reach a larger sample of
game players, a request for participation in an
online survey was posted on several online bul-
letin boards frequented by players of social on-
line games such as World of Wa rc raft (Blizzard,
2004). Again, participants <18 years of age
were not included in the study. Responses were
voluntary and no inducements were offered.
Responses to the same written survey were re-
ceived from 136 individuals, but 55 respondents
did not complete the online questionnaires,
leaving 81 participants for inclusion in the final
analysis. There were 53 males and 28 females in
this sample (mean age = 25 years, standard
deviation = 8 years, minimum age = 18 years,
maximum age = 59 years).
 VIDEO GAME MEANING
The total sample of those surveyed was 173
participants, comprising 101 males and 72 fe-
males.
Procedure
Survey data. The data for this study came
from written responses to an open-ended ques-
tion: "Think about your most recent experience
playing a video or computer game. Think of a
time when you played for at least 30 minutes.
What game was it that you played? [space for
answer]. Please describe what happened when
you played this game. Try to describe what that
game experience meant to you." The question
was constructed to ask players about their most
recent experience with a game that lasted a
significant amount of time.
Our goal was to study the perceived meaning
of the game experience across any game type,
and so unlike most previous research, we did
not place restrictions on the type of game that
participants discussed, nor did we focus exclu-
sively on violent games. There have been at-
tempts to categorize types of video games using
various classification schemes (Smith, 2006),
but all such schemes have problems capturing
the blistering pace and range of technological
innovations in this field (Przybylski et al.,
2010). Broadly speaking, the students chose to
describe sports, puzzle/casual, and music games
most often, while the online sample chose mas-
sively multiplayer online (MMO) games more
frequently, which is unsurprising given that we
drew our online sample from Web sites fre-
quented mainly by such online game players. A
large number of the online sample also de-
scribed sports game experiences. Action/
adventure, role-playing games, first-person
shooter (FPS), and fighting games were popular
choices in both samples. Across both samples,
participants discussed games played on both
PCs and on game consoles, while a few players
discussed hand-held games. Our focus was on
the shared aspects of the video game experi-
ence, not differences due to genre types.
Qualitative data analysis. We used the ba-
sic approach to qualitative analysis as described
by Patton (1990), paying special attention to the
methodology for interpreting the experience
while limiting the amount of researcher bias. As
a first step, a graduate student in psychology
who was unfamiliar with the video game play
113
research literature examined all the responses to
look for themes within the data through re-
peated responses, clusters of responses, or
unique statements. The researcher identified
each such theme with an initial label. Themes
were based on "a statement by the participant
which was self-definable and self-delimiting in
the expression of a single, recognizable aspect
of the subject's experience" (Cloonan, 1971, p.
117). Themes were developed inductively at
this stage, that is, the themes emerged from a
careful reading of the survey responses (induc-
tive analysis) rather than being imposed on the
responses according to predetermined catego-
ries (the deductive approach).
Some qualitative analyses use computer pro-
grams to organize the data during this stage, but
for this study the analysis was done by the
researchers due to the idiosyncratic language
and jargon of game players, which would render
a strictly textual analysis ineffective if not coun-
terproductive to a full understanding of the data
(Davis & Meyer, 2009).
Across all participants, 9633 words of re-
sponses were analyzed. This represented an av-
erage response of 55.6 words per respondent
(range 7-142).
Content analysis. A list of 60 themes was
initially identified and a brief definition was
provided for each. We then began the process
that Patton terms investigator triangulation:
having two or more researchers independently
analyze the data and compare their findings.
Two additional researchers, a faculty member
and a psychology graduate student, who have
each been conducting research on the psychol-
ogy of video game play for several years, ana-
lyzed the qualitative data.
After the themes were defined, all three re-
searchers independently reviewed all the writ-
ten responses and coded them with regard to
which themes were represented in every re-
sponse. All three researchers then compared
their results to triangulate a coding for each
response of the 173 participants that fully cap-
tured the responses of all. Most responses con-
tained multiple themes, but any specific part of
a response (a unit) was coded with only one
theme. There were 641 units labeled in this
fashion (399 from the student sample and 242
from the online sample, an average of 3.7 units
per participant). If all three researchers agreed
that a theme was present in a response, it was
114 OSWALD,
accepted. In the event that they did not agree,
the response was discussed until a consensus
was reached as to whether the theme was pres-
ent and descriptive of the response under dis-
cussion. When necessary, definitions were fur-
ther clarified to better handle disputes. As
triangulation went on, a few new themes were
consensually added and some were removed or
merged into existing themes.
With a final list of themes identified and
matched to responses, the themes were ordered
into a hierarchy (Patton, 1990). This was done
by taking the various themes and grouping them
into similar clusters by looking for shared traits
or similarities. Researchers who have used a
similar methodology for qualitative data analy-
sis have described this process as "a conceptual
factor analysis" (Scanlan et aI., 1989). The clus-
ters were arranged from most specific, which
was the original themes themselves, to the most
general common quality they shared. Two prin-
ciples emphasized by Patton (1990) were used
to facilitate this process. First, we attempted to
define all themes so that they were mutually
exclusive of each other. Second, higher-order
categories attempted to capture most of the low-
er-order themes so as to leave as few themes as
possible uncategorized. Once again the process
emphasized agreement between the three ana-
lysts. After each had produced his own hierar-
chy, the analysts met and used a visual display
of all the themes to facilitate the final clustering
Table 1
Number of Participants Expressing a Theme Within the Major Categories
Number of Number of
partici pants Percentage themes in
Category (N = 173) of total
Emotional 127 73%
responses
Game play 109 63%
Social 63 36%
Outcomes of 58 34%
game play
Goals 47 27%
Personal qualities 18 10%
PRO ROCK, AND MURPHY
into categories. Only when all three analysts
agreed upon all categories was the process com-
plete. We named each category and subcategory
only after the groupings were finished. The the-
ories and models of the video game play liter-
ature were used when relevant to help identify
and name the categories and subcategories that
had emerged, thus adding a deductive compo-
nent to the inductive analysis (Gibbs, 2007).
This process ended in a hierarchy with six major
categories, 13 subcategories and 57 themes that
encompassed all of the themes identified by the
researchers.
Results
Six major categories were identified in the
data analysis: Emotional Responses, Game
Play, Social, Outcomes of Game Play, Goals,
and Personal Qualities. Table 1 describes these
categories and shows how many participants
mentioned a theme within each category and
how many themes were grouped within each
category.
By providing some quantitative data within
our qualitative analysis, we hope to provide a
means to assess the broad representativeness of
our findings across this particular sample. But
as other researchers who have used a qualitative
approach have pointed out (Scanlan et aI.,
1989), the numerical data should be considered
secondary to the actual qualitative analysis re-
category Description
13 Themes expressing game playas a positive or negative
emotional experience, or as avoidance of negative
emotions
16 Themes expressing the process of how the game was
played, immersion in it, or
satisfaction/dissatisfaction
9 Themes describing relationships such as friendships
derived from playing, competition, or gaming with
others
9 Themes describing anticipated outcomes such as
achievement and failure, or unanticipated outcomes
such as obsessive playing or somatic symptoms
6 Themes describing the goals players set, either
individually or collectively
3 Themes describing perceived level of ability,
competitive nature, or self-control
 VIDEO GAME MEANING liS

suits and interpreted with some caution. A given
theme might have been mentioned by just a few
participants, for example, but it might be an
important finding because it reveals a new
understanding of the gaming experience or
suggests avenues for research that have been
overlooked.
In the Tables 2-7 describing each of the six
categories, the higher-order subcategories that
emerged from data analysis are shown, and the
number of participants and percentages of the
total sample who reported each of the themes
and subcategories within each category is given.
For every theme, an illustrative quote is pro-
vided in the accompanying table (the "sample
quote").
Although some participants mentioned a
theme twice, the frequencies presented here
count only one theme per participant so as not to
give some participants more influence than oth-
ers on the final results. For example, a partici-
pant who mentioned Excitement twice is
counted only once in Table 2. However, some
subjects reported multiple themes from the
same category, so numbers for the higher-order
subcategories are not simply the sums of all
themes expressed. For example, a single sub-
ject may have reported the themes of Excite-
ment, Intensity, and Nostalgia, but would still
be counted just once in the Positive Emotions
subcategory.
The six categories that emerged from the
qualitative data analysis support some recent
trends in the psychological research on video
games. The most commonly mentioned themes
expressed by our respondents clustered together
in a category we called Emotional Responses,
consisting of three subcategories: Positive Emo-
tions, Avoiding Negative Emotions, and Nega-
tive Emotions (see Table 2). These were among
the simplest themes to identify and this category
emerged early and consistently during the data
analysis process. Almost three-quarters of our
sample used emotional descriptors in discussing
the meaning of their gaming experience. By far
the largest subcategory in our study was Posi-
tive Emotions, although fun/enjoyment has
sometimes not emerged as a dimension of video
game motivation in previous mixed methods
studies (e.g., Sherry et al., 2006).
Game Play, the process of mastering the tech-
nical and skills challenges of the game, becoming

Table 2
Emotional Responses

Subcategory Number of Percentage

Theme participants of total Sample quote

Positive emotions 89 51%

Fun 68 39% The game provides a fun experience playing hockey.
Excitement 15 9% When I play this game it is exciting.
intensity 9 5% The experience gave me an adrenaline rush.
Nostalgia 6 3% I used to play this 5 years ago regularly and loved it.
Humor 5 3% I looked at my friend I was playing with and I just started
laughing.
Avoiding negative emotions 34 20%
Reduced boredom i4 8% Gives me something to do when I'm done with homework
and friends are busy.
Relaxation 9 5% I spend every day at work or school thinking, and it's
nice to be able to relax.
Stress relief 8 5% Playing World of Ware raft is something I do as a form of
catharsis for the built-up emotions and energies from
school.
Escape 8 5% World of Warcraft is something that I can come home to
and just zone out.
Negative emotions 22 13%
Frustration 12 7% It made me feel frustrated to lose by 1 point.
Boredom 4 2% It was fun but got boring after a while.
Anger 3 2% By the end of the games someone usually gets really mad.
Anxiety 3 2% I ran around with my nerves teetering on the breaking
point.
116 OSW ALD, PROROCK, AND MURPHY

Table 3
Game Play

Subcategory Number of Percentage

Theme participants of total Sample quote

Process of game play 64 37%

Mechanics 27 16% I matched colored arrows up with movements.
Challenge 18 10% I felt like the game challenged my intellect and skills.
Simulation 12 7% I played songs on the guitar.
Violent actions 12 7% We had a great time, talked crap, and killed each other.
Physical activity 7 4% It makes me feel good because [ have fun doing it and
it gives me a good workout.
Violent content 5 3% I thought the game was pretty cool because ... anything
you see can be blown up.
Involvement and
immersion 50 29%
Character fantasy 19 11% I vicariously experience being a major league baseball
player.
Engrossing game play 15 9% I didn't answer several phone calls while playing.
Discovery 10 6% I felt excited that [ was doing something new to the
game.
Heroic fantasy 8 5% I felt like a Madden God.
Multiple roles 6 3% [ played three different characters.
Autonomy 3 2% [I] enjoy exerting the control over the development of
the civilization.
Creativity 2 1% I like the solos because they give you a chance to be
creative and impress everyone.
Evaluation of game play 30 17%
Game play dissatisfaction 12 7% I didn't like the social status of the game because the
conversations weren't real and didn't make sense.
Lack of meaning 10 6% It didn't mean that much to me.
Game play satisfaction 8 5% Really nice graphics, the game responds very well to all
command[s].

imaginatively involved, and feeling satisfied or
dissatisfied by the experience, was a major cate-
gory in this research. Game Play consisted of three
subcategories: Process of Game Play, Involve-
ment and Immersion, and Evaluation of Game
Play (see Table 3). Many players tried to explain
what the game meant to them by telling us about
the game, their involvement with it, and evalua-
tion of it. Almost two thirds of our sample men-
tioned at least one of the themes in this category.
Participants in our study thought that understand-
ing the controls and the rules of the game they
were playing was an important aspect of a suc-
cessful play experience. Immersion in the game
was also important: players fantasized about their
role within the game (Character Fantasy, Heroic
Fantasy); described exploring new locations in a
virtual world and sometimes a sense of surprise at
discovering new aspects of the game or the game
play (Discovery); became so completely im-
mersed in the experience that they temporarily lost
track of reality (Engrossing Game Play); and used
the game as an outlet for their Creativity. Players
also expressed their opinions as to whether the
game satisfied them (Evaluation of Game Play).
The most frequently expressed theme in this sub-
category was the articulation of overall unhappi-
ness with the gaming experience (Game Play Dis-
satisfaction), and several players stated explicitly
that they found a Lack of Meaning in their
gaming.
Over 36% of our total sample described their
game experience at least partly in social terms,
and these themes clustered into three subcate-
gories, Relationships, Competition, and Social
Gaming (see Table 4). One of the most common
descriptions of the gaming experience was in
terms of playing with and against roommates,
spouses, and friends. Our participants often em-
phasized maintaining existing friendships, play-
ing with or against their friends, spouses, room-
mates, or others. They also talked about online
friendships that developed from playing the
game itself. Sometimes participants described
 VIDEO GAME MEANING 117

Table 4
Social

Subcategory Number of Percentage

Theme participants of total Sample quote

Relationships 44 25%
Friendship outside of 33 /9% My friend and I played at his house because I didn't have the
game system.
Communication /0 6% The game is the only way I can really spend time with this friend
due to location of our homes so it meant quality time to talk.
Friendship in the game 8 5% I just had a friend online and wanted to play with him ... 1 like
being social (even if its online).
Competition 28 16%
Player competition /8 /0% I love music and playing guitar against other people (especially in
battles).
Competitive artificial
intelligence (AI) play 9 5% I felt a challenge to best the computer.
Tournament 2 1% I was singing and had a tournament with my little cousins.
Social gaming 13 8%
Cooperation 6% "[T]eam is the key to survival-the team is depending on you."
Group enjoyment "3 2% I was playing with a group of friends and the experience was an
enjoyable one.
Altruistic game play 2 /% I logged on to help my friend level.

their social interactions in terms of their Com-
munication with others while playing, such as
via "party chat" (a text-based group chat ap-
plication in the game), an aspect of gaming
that is becoming increasingly important as
many games are embedded in social online
structures such as Facebook (Axelsson &
Regan, 2006).
The fourth category that emerged from the
analysis was Outcomes of Game Play, consisting
of two subcategories: Anticipated Outcomes, and
Unanticipated Outcomes (see Table 5). The dif-
ference between themes in the two categories was
that players intended and/or expected the results in
the Anticipated Outcomes subcategory, such as
proudly describing their accomplishments in the
game, recounting their failures, and mentioning
new skills they gained, whereas they described the
Unanticipated Outcomes, such as Obsessive Play-
ing and experiencing Somatic Symptoms such as
muscle aches and dizziness, as undesirable and
unwanted.
These outcome themes are closely tied to
those contained in the fifth category, Goals,

Table 5
Outcomes of Game Play

Subcategory Number of Percentage

Theme participants of total Sample quote

Anticipated outcomes 49 23%

Achievement 31 18% I played for I Y2 hr and got to World 5!
Pride 10 6% That game experience gave me a sense of accomplishment.
Failure 9 5% I never beat the last level.
Skill development 8 /6% It's a hobby that I enjoy becoming more skillful at.
Perseverance 4 2% I kept losing but I kept trying.
Unanticipated Outcomes 21 12%
Obsessive playing 9 5% I played until I realized how late it had gotten, and I needed
to go to bed.
Verbal taunting 6 3% We like to talk smack to each other.
Somatic symptoms 4 2% When I play video games for awhile I get really bad
headaches and feel dizzy.
Aroused behavior 2 1% When r couldn't complete a mission I would get pissed/
throw the controllers and stop.
118 OSWALD, PROROCK, AND MURPHY

Table 6
Goals

Subcategory Number of Percentage

Theme participants of total Sample quote

Individual goals 39 23%

Progress goals 30 17% I was playing a career mode where you playas yourself in the game
and try to make it in the pros.
Personal goals 7 4% I also like to complete the game quickly.
A voidance goals 3 2% I also used it to procrastinate from doing schoolwork.
Excellence goals 3 2% I try to be the best in my mind.
Social goals 11 6%
Competitive goals 6 3% T got competitive with my roommate trying to beat her high score.
Group goals 5 3% We couldn't fail or the game would be over so you had to work as
a team.

which contains two subcategories: Individual
Goals and Social Goals (see Table 6). Individ-
ual Goals were under the player's individual
control. The most common goals referred to
specific game objectives, such as reaching a
target, gaining a skill, or finishing a mission
(Progress Goals). Personal Goals were ex-
pressed uniquely to the player and were not
obviously contained within the structure of the
game. Further themes in this subcategory in-
cluded Excellence Goals and Avoidance Goals,
when the purpose of playing was to avoid real
life responsibilities.
Social Goals differed from individual goals
in that they expressed objectives that could only
be completed with or against other players.
These types of goals indicate a keen awareness
of the social nature of gaming for many of our
respondents. The Competitive Goals theme was
usually described in terms of setting goals to
beat another player, while the Group Goals
theme described shared objectives that required
players to work together.
The final category that emerged from the
analysis was the smallest, Personal Qualities. It
contained no subcategories and was character-
ized by player evaluations of their temperament
and ability. Three themes comprised this cate-
gory: Perceived Level of Ability, Competitive
Nature, and Self-Control (see Table 7). In de-
scribing the challenge of gaming, several play-
ers described their skill level at the game in
question, often comparing their skill with that of
their opponents (Perceived Level of Ability).
The most frequent comment was that players
sought an evenly matched competition. There
was a feeling that competing against a more
highly skilled player might lead to frustration
but that beating an equally skilled competitor
was satisfying.
Some players gave unsolicited evaluations of
themselves as having a Competitive Nature.
This must be significant in a video game context
for some players as it was the only personality-
type variable thus mentioned. Perhaps partici-
pating in a competitive activity such as gaming

Table 7
Personal Qualities

Category Number of Percentage of

Theme participants total sample Sample quote

Personal qualities 18 10%

Perceived level of ability 10 6% My friends and I are about the same skill level and I won.
I was very happy.
Competitive nature 6 3% I am a very competitive person.
Self-control 3 2% I don't play video games unless I'm with a group of
people ... We usually don't play them for more than
an hour.
 VIDEO GAME MEANING
makes this aspect of one's self more salient to
the player. The final theme in our analysis was
that of Self-Control, typified by participants
who described using some type of time man-
agement strategy as they played, such as the
20-year-old female who said, "Then I forced
myself to stop and study."
Discussion
The qualitative findings of this research pro-
vide a detailed picture of the perceived game
experience of video game players in their own
words. Four major findings emerge strongly
from our results. Three of these findings are
supportive of prior qualitative and quantitative
research on player motivations. First, the over-
whelming majority of players describe game
playas a positive emotional experience. An
emerging alternative to the media effects per-
spective emphasizes this affective nature of
video game participation. As suggested by
Ryan, Rigby, and Przybylski (2006), a self-
determination theory (SDT) analysis of video
game play suggests that video games are expe-
rienced as intrinsically rewarding by players.
They are pursued for their own sake because
they satisfy the three basic human needs of
autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Deci
& Ryan, 2000). The centrality of the gaming
experience as Fun (mentioned by 39% of our
participants) is central to the notion of game
playas intrinsically rewarding: "Why do so
many people spend so much time engaged in
such [video] games? The immediate and most
obvious answer is 'because they are fun.' In-
deed, video game play differs markedly from
activities that are engaged in for some form of
external reward (e.g., payment for work)" (Pr-
zybylski et aI., 2010, p. 154).
Participants also referred to reduced negative
feelings, and a smaller number of players de-
scribed negative emotions when playing, of
which the most common was frustration. The
negative emotions putatively associated with
playing violent video games have been elevated
to a central focus in much psychological re-
search (Buckley & Anderson, 2006), but our
results found that negative emotions such as
anger and anxiety were salient for a small num-
ber of players, even though many of them dis-
cussed playing violent-content games such as
FPSs and MMOs. The idea that playing violent
119
video games is stressful and anger-inducing but
is also reinforcing has always been a conun-
drum for the media effects approach. Our find-
ings suggest that players rarely experience
video game playas stressful, instead experienc-
ing them typically as positive, often as stress-
reducing, sometimes as frustrating or boring.
A second major finding in this study is that
participants have a wide variety of goals they
seek to fulfill when gaming. Two categories
identified in our analysis, Goals and Outcomes
of Game Play, paint a picture of participants
who evaluate their experiences in terms of suc-
cess and failure in reaching their goals, taking
pride in their game accomplishments and skill
development. Discussion of the goal-directed
nature of video gaming has been largely absent
from the mainstream psychological literature,
indicating a possible disconnect between re-
searcher-developed frameworks of video gam-
ing and the experiences of players themselves.
This finding that players set goals related to
achievement, progress, excellence, competition,
and teamwork once again supports Ryan et aI.'s
(2006) notion that autonomy (a participant's
sense of volition in performing an activity) and
competence (feelings of challenge and achieve-
ment) are central motives for video game play.
Some researchers have used Csikszentmihalyi's
(1990) concept of flow, which suggests that
individuals experience the metamotivational
state of flow when performing a challenging
activity with the appropriate level of skill, to
further understand why goals and skills are so
important to players (Cowley, Charles, Black,
& Hickey, 2008). Video game participation is
apparently an activity akin to sports, often in-
volving skill development and personal chal-
lenges. Athletes describe similar goals for their
sports participation (Harwood, 2005).
The strikingly active role that social themes
played in player descriptions of their experi-
ences was the third major finding of our study.
Nearly all investigations of motives for video
game play have identified a social factor (Fer-
guson & Olson, 2012; Olson, 2010; Sherry et
aI., 2006; Yee, 2007). Over a third of partici-
pants in our sample described relationships with
others when discussing their experience, includ-
ing friendships formed through games as well as
preexisting friendships strengthened through
mutual play. Feelings of relatedness (Deci &
Ryan, 2000) are generated when individuals
120 OSW ALD, PROROCK,
feel connected with others and this seemed to
occur frequently during gaming experiences for
our participants, providing further support for
the relevance of SDT in understanding the game
experience. Competition between players was
another kind of social interaction frequently
mentioned by our participants, as was the expe-
rience of social gaming, including cooperating
with others to achieve common goals, and even
altruistic game play. Social scientists have in-
vestigated a wide range of social influences in
video games (Chen, 2009; Ducheneaut & itations and suggestions for improving future
Moore, 2004; Jakobsson & Taylor, 2003; Seay,
Jerome, Lee, & Kraut, 2004) although assess-
ment of the influence of social factors on player
perceptions of game features such as violence
and competition has been lacking (Anderson &
Carnagey, 2009).
The centrality of positive emotions, player
goals, and social relationships in this sample of
players supports the notion that SDT has the
potential to be a unifying theoretical framework
in the field of video game research (Murphy,
2009; Przybylski et al., 2010). The substantial
body of research on sport and exercise supports
the cognitive evaluation theory (the major sub-
theory of SDT) prediction that autonomy and
competence predict interest and sustained par-
ticipation in these activities (Ryan & Deci,
2007) and similar findings are emerging in the
study of video games (Przybylski, Weinstein,
Ryan, & Rigby, 2009; Wang, Khoo, Liu, &
Divaharan, 2008).
The fourth finding that emerges from our data
analysis is the overall complex character of the
varied responses to our simple question, what
did this mean? Our qualitative approach cap-
tured the varied personal meanings ascribed to
their gaming experiences by our sample, a com-
plexity not revealed by merely examining Ta-
bles 2-7 and the sample quotes we provided.
We were struck by the first-person accounts of
gaming experiences and the apparent identifica-
tion with games and characters described by
participants, revealing how game pla~ ~e~ges
with and influences other areas of an individu-
al's life. For example, a 20-year-old female
player's description of a game experience re-
veals social goals, cooperation, altruism, time
management, and a blossoming relationship:
I logged on to help my friend level. I played my alt
(level 12) to level his level 8. I flew to the other side of
AND MURPHY
the world to Silvermoon and he shared the quest he had
to do with me. By my tanking we were able to do lots
of quests in a small amount of time. During this game-
play I believe our friendship that had already existed in
RL [real life] grew because I was willing to help him
even though the quests were low level for me. Then I
forced myself to stop and study.
This fourth finding suggests that the common
mainstream psychological research strategy of
evaluating game content in order to understand
games and to determine psychological effects
on players has inherent limitations. These lim-
video game research based on our results are
discussed next.
Psychology Research Should Focus on the
Actual Play Experience via Assessment of
Player Perceptions and Observation of
Game Behavior, in Addition to
Understanding Game Content
One of the central features of a great deal of
existing research on the psychological conse-
quences of video game play is that the content
of the game is assessed in some manner to
establish a relationship between it and subse-
quent player behavior, affect, and cognition.
Nearly all existing research that shows a rela-
tionship between violent content and subse-
quent aggression is based on this methodology
of content analysis (Anderson & Carnagey,
2009; Anderson & Ford, 1986; Carnagey &
Anderson, 2005). Our results indicate three ma-
jor problems with this approach, but they also
suggest new assessment approaches that can
address these problems.
First, our results showed that the game expe-
rience is often not reflective of the apparent
content of the game. Researchers must be care-
ful not to assume, for example, that the social
dimension of a game is necessarily determined
by its design or by analysis of game content.
Our data suggest that even a richly social game,
such as World of Warcraft, can be played as
essentially a single-player game requiring no
social interaction if, for example, a participant
turns off all social communication channels,
ignores other players, and focuses on solo game
play goals. Likewise, violent content in a game
did not determine a violent game play experi-
ence. We found prosocial and even altruistic
experiences described by players of the game
 VIDEO GAME MEANING
World of Warcraft, which has a high level of
violent content and has been a focus of much
research on pathological gaming (Pawlikowski
& Brand, 2011; Sublette & Mullan, 2010), and
other researchers have found that many violent
video games contain numerous pro social
themes (Ferguson & Garza, 2011). Such find-
ings can emerge from studying player experi-
ences but are difficult to identify from analyzing
game content. While research into the lived
experiences of game players has flourished in
some fields such as anthropology and ethnogra-
phy (Nardi, 2009; Shaw, 2010), it has been
largely absent from the mainstream psychology
literature.
A second problem with using game content to
define a player's experience is that the social
factor we identified in our results provides a
context that can dramatically alter the player's
perceptions of the game. Social interaction dur-
ing play can change the experience of the par-
ticipants in ways that those evaluating the game
content may not anticipate. Game publishers
themselves acknowledge this issue, as many
games today come with the warning to players
that "Game play may change during online
play." Our results suggest that in some, perhaps
many, situations, this social context is the pri-
mary influence on the participant's experience,
rather than the game content itself. This hypoth-
esis is certainly worthy of testing.
The third problem with content analysis that
emerged from our research is that participants
reported playing games of such length that a full
analysis of the game content would be impos-
sible. Many players discussed playing games
with> 100 hr of content, and some with >300
hr of content, while players of the popular on-
line MMO games sometimes described partici-
pating for thousands of hours over several years
of play. Many new games also have randomly
generated content, so that no two players will
ever experience the same game play (e.g.,
Skyrim, Minecraft). Clearly, rating the full game
content of such games is impossible.
The problem of assessing game content has
been identified as a critical one for the field by
other researchers. Ferguson (2010), for example,
discusses the limitations of the three methods
typically used by researchers: expert assess-
ments by the researchers, who examine the con-
tent of the video games being studied and rate
the violence of the game content; rating the
121
nature of the game content by the players of the
game who participate in the research; or using
the ratings and descriptions of game content
provided by external evaluators such as the En-
tertainment Software Ratings Board. Up until
now, no viable alternative to these three ap-
proaches has been suggested. However, the
present research study suggests that asking
players about their perceptions of their game
experience, rather than asking them to rate the
content of the game played, can be a valid
research tool. An analogy is provided by the
history of stress assessment research. The first
widely used measure of human stress was the
Social Readjustment Rating Scale (Holmes &
Rahe, 1967). Items on this scale were weighted
by the researchers, who made a determination
of how much change each event necessitated.
Measured in this way, stress was a weak pre-
dictor of health. Later conceptualizations of
stress by Lazarus and Folkman (1984) sug-
gested that assessment should not conceptualize
stress as an objective environmental stimulus
but instead must assess the meaning of the event
for the individual. Current stress research uses
assessments that ask respondents to rate their
perceptions of stress rather than relying on re-
searcher judgments of the nature of an event and
a stronger stress- health relationship emerges
(Searle & Bennett, 2001). Similar techniques
can and should be used in future video game
research.
To complement assessment of game content
and player perceptions, another practical and
easily implemented assessment approach would
be to assess actual in-game behavior of players.
When assessing violence issues in sports, re-
searchers in sport psychology do not rate the
"violent content" of the game being played, for
example, hockey or football, but instead mea-
sure the violent or aggressive actions of players
during play (e.g., Kavussanu, Stamp, Slade, &
Ring, 2009; Rascle & Coulomb, 2003; Sage &
Kavussanu, 2007). This methodology should
also be suitable for video game research. Play-
ers can be asked which behaviors they engaged
in during play; researchers can observe game
play and assess the total number of occurrences
of aggressive or violent actions; or in-game
tracking features can be used to record activi-
ties, for example, most FPS games record
"number of kills," "head shots," "deaths" and so
on during a play session. Furthermore, this
122 OSW ALD, PROROCK,
methodology can be used with other behaviors
engaged in during game play, including proso-
cial as well as antisocial behaviors. While some
video games largely determine the experience
of the player via limited options and uniformity
of content, many video games today offer a
wide range of play styles. Assessment of actual
game experiences should be a simple step for
psychology researchers and one that promises to
open up entire new areas of assessment and
research.
Qualitative research always carries the limi-
tation that with different researchers, or even
the same researchers under different conditions,
theme analyses may have been different. This
suggests the need for mixed-methods research,
which uses both qualitative and quantitative
analyses. Convergence among different re-
search studies also strengthens confidence in
qualitative findings. Themes that were identified
in previous qualitative studies that also ap-
peared in our analysis include competition,
challenge, social interaction, diversion from re-
ality, excitement, arousal, mastering game
skills, accomplishment and pride, cooperation,
entertainment, absorption, fantasizing about
game characters, stress relief and relief from
boredom, somatic complaints, obsessive play-
ing, violent content, and frustration (Funk et al.,
2006; Olson et al., 2008; Sherry et al., 2006).
Such commonalities among these studies and
ours give us greater confidence in our findings.
Our analysis also diverged in some ways
from previous studies. Perhaps more than any
previous study, this research suggests that
player goals are a critical component of the
meaning of the game experience, shaping in-
game choices and activities, evaluations of and
reactions to the game, and emotional experi-
ences. Our respondents also provided us with a
more nuanced picture of participants' emotional
response palette than has emerged from most
other studies, describing not only fun and ex-
citement, but also intensity, nostalgia, humor,
frustration, anger, anxiety, and being bored. Our
participants also engaged in some self-reflection
that was not characteristic of prior research,
identifying several personal qualities that be-
come salient when gaming. The first of these
were descriptions of their perceived level of
ability, comparing their own skills with those of
others. Our participants also noticed their own
competitive nature emerging in the context of
AND MURPHY
playing video games. Finally, some of our par-
ticipants described the use of self-control strat-
egies such as time management to help them
keep their video game activities in balance
with other life priorities. This last finding may
suggest an effective strategy to combat the
obsessive aspect of playing identified by
some participants.
Finally, there are some limitations of the
present research study that deserve discussion.
First, our methodology did not allow us to sur-
vey participants immediately after their game
experience, so our data are subject to possibil-
ities of biased recollection, changing or forget-
ting memories, or overlooking aspects of game
play that were significant at the time (Nisbett &
Wilson, 1977). Because our focus was on as-
sessing participants' interpretations of the
meaning of past game experiences, we expected
such possible reevaluations and this was not a
major problem, but research interviewing par-
ticipants during or immediately after their game
play would be a welcome further step in this
research process. It would be informative, for
example, to assess how an individual's subjec-
tive experiences of games vary over time or
between different games. The behavioral ap-
proach we suggested for future research would
also be needed to address some elements of the
game experience, for example, arousal, affect,
and aroused behavior, which may not be accu-
rately recognized or reported by players in a
self-report study such as this.
Our research did not try to account for pos-
sible differences in experience between genders
or among individuals of varying cultural back-
grounds, as our qualitative methodology was
poorly suited to such analyses and there was no
random or representative selection of a diverse
sample of participants. The convenience sample
of students we used and our recruitment of
respondents from an MMO Web site also limit
the representativeness of our results. Broader
samples, including a wider range of respon-
dents, demographically and by age, would en-
hance follow-up research. Funk et al. (2006),
for example, identified distinctly different con-
cerns in a sample of children compared a sam-
ple of adults. The perceived meanings we iden-
tified apply to a sample of mainly young adults,
many of them in college.
Our research took place immediately before
the surge in popularity of mobile, freemium,
 VIDEO GAME MEANING
and casual games that are simply designed and
suitable for mobile devices such as smartphones
and tablets. Such games can quickly attract mil-
lions of users worldwide (Anderson, 2012;
Wortham, 2010). It will be exciting to extend
this type of qualitative methodology to an anal-
ysis of such games and perhaps to even newer
interactive "augmented reality" devices and
software that are on the horizon.
Previous studies have varied widely in their
descriptions of their methodologies, ranging
from cursory descriptions of data analysis such
as "interviews were analyzed for repeated
themes" (Sherry et al., 2006), to detailed ac-
counts of qualitative methods used (Kutner et
al., 2008). Clear descriptions of methodologies
give researchers some confidence that inherent
biases in qualitative analyses were avoided as
much as possible. Quantitative and mixed-
methods research, such as the pioneering work
of Yee (2006), that build upon the current work
and upon previous attempts to describe impor-
tant psychological factors of video game play,
are a logical next step in the research process.
Conclusion
The goal of this study was to yield a broad
picture of the perceived experience of video
game participation as described by players. Our
methodology sought to limit the influence of
researchers and their predefined notions on the
responses of players. The current findings sug-
gest that a reliance on the media effects ap-
proach to research on video game play may
have led psychology researchers to over-
research factors that are not essential to the
game experience while understudying factors
that are more universally shared by players. As
alternative approaches in fields such as media
studies and communications theory suggest, re-
searchers can no longer afford to base major
research programs solely on researcher-based
evaluations of game play-the player's per-
spective is the critical variable to assess.
Our results support the notion that video
game play can be studied as a recreational ac-
tivity, akin to sports and other hobbies. Partic-
ipants actively set goals for their game play
time, they evaluate the outcome of the game
play in terms of success and failure, and they
actively seek social relationships, friendly, co-
operative, and competitive, during their gaming.
123
The themes that emerged in this study were well
captured within the SDT framework of auton-
omy, competence, and relatedness, the same
motives that drive participation in other intrin-
sically rewarding forms of recreation such as
sport. At the same time, there are a number of
factors related to game play, mechanics, and the
fantasy and immersive aspects of games that
differentiate the video game experience from
other pursuits such as sport. The present study
contributes to an emerging interdisciplinary
view of what the video game experience
means to the individual participant and points
to some exciting new research possibilities
for psychologists.
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Received December 21,2011
Revision received February 28, 2013
Accepted June 6, 2013 •