Big Think Interview with Nicole Lazzaro on Emotion and Fun in Games

Well worth watching, another video on games and gaming (and fun, and emotion, and motivation etc.): Big Think Interview with Nicole Lazzaro: A conversation with the founder and president of XEODesign

Nicole is a leading expert on emotion and fun in games. Her job over the past 20 years has been “to make games more fun” and “to make the screen more engaging.” From her bio:

Nicole was the first person to use facial expressions to measure player experiences. Through this research which she published in 2004 she discovered that people’s favorite player experiences (PX) craft emotion by offering choices in four play styles: the Hard Fun from challenge and mastery, Easy Fun from exploration and role play, Serious Fun for relaxation and real work, and People Fun from the excuse to hang out with friends. XEODesign’s PX model on emotion and games called the 4 Fun Keys inspires a wide range of creative approaches for crafting more emotions from play. With the 4 Fun Keys developers access player’s emotional response to innovate early in the development cycle where there is much less risk.

You can find more of her research on her website.

Watch the interview (about 27 minutes):

Lots to learn. Have a nice weekend!

Related posts:

1. Second Life and Empathy

Tagged as: fun, games, gaming, play