Keywords

1 Introduction

Over the years, digital games have attracted many users and acquired prominence as a lucrative and interactive type of media [1]. Part of their success is attributed to the fact that games are capable of promoting significant interaction with the player and, through its narratives and mechanics, are able to promote complete immersion, allowing the user to experience different realities.

Among the many possible experiences provided by digital games, topics that deserve special attention are those often considered taboo [2], such as war, death, and mortality, which have been labeled as an emerging category called empathy games [28]. These games seek to encourage the user to reflect about sensitive topics and often have sentimental content. In this context, it is crucial to analyze representations of death and human frailty in the narratives of digital empathy games. An important question therefore arises: which aspects are revealed from the user experience with empathy games?

The present study seeks to analyze user perception of this type of game, in order to identify relevant aspects of its design and assessment.

For this reason, the authors first selected games that addressed issues related to death and resulting conflicts. Out of the few games analyzed during the bibliographic and netnographic research, Valiant Hearts: The Great War [3] was chosen as the object of study, due to manner it addresses death, which is a central aspect of its narrative, and also due to its autobiographical dimension, which heightens its ability to arouse empathy in the user. Furthermore, this game presents several technical features, such as visual elements, immersive stimulation, sound components, as well as relevant human factors, such as emotional and sentimental value, which are also analyzed in this experiment.

In the initial netnographic research, there were discussion forums in web platforms dedicated to Valiant Hearts: The Great War, where players relayed their experiences and wrote their reviews.

Therefore, the present study analyzed the comments of players in the internet discussion forum available in the digital distribution platform Steam, focusing on how technical issues and game quality issues, as well as topics of mortality and death, were addressed. Based on the analyzed data, this study categorizes the recurring content contained in comments by gamers in order to reveal aspects of their review of technical, emotional and general aspects of the digital game Valiant Hearts: The Great War.

Moreover, this research is part of the research project DAVI (Dados Além da Vida – Data Beyond Life)Footnote 1, which investigates post-mortem digital legacy from the perspective of technical, cultural, legal and affective principles, in order to propose design solutions for computational systems concerning the digital assets left by dead users.

The article is organized as follows. After this introduction, the theoretical reference will be presented, followed by the methodology, proposed classifications and, finally, the conclusion.

2 Theoretical Reference

Empathy refers to: “(1) the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another; (2) the imaginative ascribing to an object, as a natural object or work of art, feelings or attitudes present in oneself.” [4] According to these definitions, empathy is associated with the human ability to understand another person and place oneself in the other person’s shoes. In games, this ability can be developed and associated with more sensitive topics such as death.

Death is usually present in games as a gaming strategy: to limit a session, in case the player has squandered his number of possible lives; or as an instructional mechanism, since, after dying and reinitiating many times, the player ends up learning the game; or even as a punishment, since, when dying, the player loses all his progress and has to start from scratch. However, topics such as mortality and human frailty are scarcely explored, whether due to lack of interest of the gaming industry and designers in working with such project or because consumers choose to play games with less contemplative appeal, as states Neto [5].

For this reason, games that include death in their narratives, but not as central themes, arouse little or no debate about the relation between what is presented in the virtual realm and what occurs in real life regarding human mortality. Kingsepp [6], when analyzing the game Medal of Honor: Frontline and comparing it to films about World War II, states that, because the game does not depict a realistic dramatic experience suffered by a soldier in the midst of the war, it is labeled as superficial. Unlike this genre, one of the emerging categories that include games capable of generating reflection or emotional responsiveness are the “empathy games”, as presented by Diogo [7].

Theresa Wiseman [8] defines four main attributes present in the state of empathy towards another person, starting with understanding another person’s point of view, taking the perspective of a person through previous experience or recognizing her view as legitimate, being nonjudgmental and, finally, recognizing another person’s feelings and communicating your understanding to her. Considering these attributes, Tiroli [9] states that inquiring about the reasons why a person acts a certain way leads the path to the root of the problem. This reflexive process, mediated by games, makes it possible to explore complex issues.

According to Goulart [10], “empathy games” have a different goal from those composing the “fun circuit”, but they still maintain their central goal, which is to entertain the player. Belman and Flanagan [11] point out that “empathy games” should, necessarily, guide the player to objectively sympathize with the situations in which she is placed. For this to occur, four steps are required: it must create an open requisite for empathy; it must offer feedback about how the actions of the players influence the games; it must assure that empathy is both emotional and cognitive; and it must highlight the common aspects shared by the player’s reality and the situation presented.

One of the empathy games includes The Walking Dead: Season One, which was analyzed by Toby and Stef [12]. The authors indicated the importance of using mechanisms and narratives that represent traumas, of providing immersion, and of triggering feelings of empathy and connection from the players while enticing game attitudes that contain high emotional impact. Firstly, there is interactivity and inter-reactivity, which is capable of containing interactivity supplied by the game and reactivity of players, molding their experience from the virtual project that is shown. Moreover, one must consider both dimensions of empathy: one that is cognitive, in which there is an intention of assuming another person’s viewpoint, and one that is emotional, which consists in a more primitive and instinctive reaction to other people’s feelings. Lastly, there is a sense of connection between the player and the events of the game, which derives from a mixture of the items mentioned above in order to provide the experience that the player is controlling and is responsible for the events occurring in the game.

Sellen [13] discusses the importance of emotional aspects for the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and states that words such as “magic”, “enchanting”, “pleasure”, “surprise” and “emotion” started showing up when researchers and designers started discussing what technology meant to people.

According to Norman [14], the human mind, related to aspects of systems design, processes at three interconnected levels: visceral design, which refers to the appearance and the first impact generated by a product; behavioral design, which relates to use from an objective point of view and refers to the product’s function, how effective it is at executing its functions, how user-friendly it is in terms of understandability and operability, and other aspects related to how the product “behaves” with the user; and reflective design, which considers the rationalization and intellectualization of a product, the emotional memory and the meanings ascribed to the products and their use. For Norman [14], the emotional dimension in designing projects may be more critical to the success of a product than the practical elements.

In turn, Xavier [15] defines feeling as one of the components of emotion, not representing the emotional state of an individual, but the verbal rendition that a person professes when faced with an emotional episode. Feeling is the conscious interpretation and verbal expression that the individual generates about what he is feeling at a given moment. This is the case when a person says they are feeling “happy” after purchasing a product online, or that they are “frustrated” because they are not able to connect to the internet [15].

Gerald et al. [16], when realizing there was a wide range of emotions involved, created the OCC (Ortone, Clore & Collins) Model. According to this model, emotions are categorized according to the feelings they generate, with the resulting acts and events of the involved actor. The model presents three classes, six groups and 22 types of emotions.

The technical aspects are naturally very important, considering issues related to the immersion, usability, sound quality, narrative, and other qualities of the game [17]. Aspects related to usability can be decisive in assuring the success of a game. Hartson and Pyla [17] highlight that the usability level can be influenced by two types of system complexity: (1) interaction complexity, related to the elaborateness of user actions, including cognitive load; and (2) technical development complexity (i.e. game development, game design). Systems with high interaction and high development complexity are more likely to have low usability.

In the gaming context, immersion generates emotion and movement to the narrative and can be explored by different computer resources and interaction strategies. According to Rogers et al. [18], the level of immersion that the game offers may, moreover, affect the perception of the player in relation to scene authenticity, cause nausea or dizziness, and influence the decision of the user to continue to play the game or to quit.

The technical sound quality, along with the narrative, may influence the level of player involvement and, consequently, in the realistic quality of graphics, as state Summers and Jesse [19]. Thus, it can be noticed that no technical aspect should be treated in isolated form, since it may positively or negatively influence another aspect. For instance, when the sound quality is inadequate, it may not cause immersion and, consequently, the scenes will not seem realistic.

3 Methodology

This research is descriptive, with a qualitative approach. For data collection, the netnographic method was used, i.e., a set of online ethnographic procedures using a manual process of interpretative comment analysis written by users of the digital game Valiant Hearts: The Great War [3]. According to Leitão and Prates [20], “With the material at hand, the researcher classifies it into main categories of analysis grouped according to common meanings. Categorization is iterative, and the categories gradually gain a greater degree of abstraction in terms of assigned meanings. These categories will always be traceable, corresponding in descriptive terms to, for example, user testimonials in interviews or to excerpts of interaction during a session. At the end of the process, the different perspectives of users on the studied phenomenon are reflected in an articulated set of categories”.

Bibliographic research was initially conducted on topics related to the object of study: games, death, empathy, feelings. Subsequently, games that dealt with war and death were pre-selected in order to provoke emotional reaction in the player. After a preliminary selection, the game Valiant Hearts: The Great War was selected for an in-depth study in this work, mainly due to its predominant focus on the issues being analyzed. It should be noted that, because the game was inspired by reports of soldiers who participated in World War I, it has a strong capacity to arouse empathy in the user by representing human emotions in the face of war and death, as well as the technical and human factors that can be analyzed. Additionally, there are several discussion forums about this game, which favors the collection of data for analysis.

The games that were discarded from the sample were not included in the corpus of this research because they presented mechanics and narratives that explored other themes. This group included the games This War of Mine [21], Life is Strange [22], Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons [23] and The Walking Dead - A Telltale Game [24].

Initially, in order to become familiar with the object of study, the game Valiant Hearts: The Great War was played for about four hours. Comments written in Portuguese and English were subsequently collected in the game’s discussion forum (the latter being translated into Portuguese) from the software page on the Steam platform. From this sample, a new selection was made, separating the comments that presented the most articulate evaluations on the research object. Very short reviews or texts that did not present sufficient content for analysis were discarded. Examples of discarded publications include: “Great Game” and “Very Cute Game”.

Therefore, 77 valid comments were considered, which were organized into a spreadsheet containing three columns: one with the name of the user, another with its comment, and the last with the content that was most notable from each comment. The user ratings were in Portuguese and English; however, only comments in Portuguese were used in this article. After that, these comments were subjected to a deeper analysis and, as analyzed, categories were created and, if necessary, thematic subcategories for the contents that were highlighted in the comments. Investigation was conducted by three researchers, two from the Technology field and one from the Linguistics field.

To ensure user anonymity, the following codification was used: the letter U, followed by a number. It is also worth mentioning that this study is part of the research project on the Pre-Management Systems of Post-Death Digital Legacy, which has been approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Federal University of Mato Grosso.

The final part proposes categories of repeated content included in player comments, based on the analyzed data, in order to highlight aspects for the conception and evaluation of technical, emotional/sentimental and general elements of Valiant Hearts: The Great War. The definitions of categories and subcategories are found in the results section of this article.

3.1 About the Game

Valiant Hearts: The Great War [3] is an adventure puzzle videogame developed by Ubisoft Montpellier and published by Ubisoft. The game is inspired in letters written during World War I and consists of four characters in the battlefield helping a young German soldier find his true love, in a story about survival, sacrifice and friendship. Valiant Hearts employs the UbiArt Framework, a 2.5D video game engine software developed by Ubisoft Montpellier. Its primary function is to organize 2D animated vector graphics into a playable videogame without extended codification. [25]. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One in June 2014, followed by ports to Android and iOS [26].

The game includes four chapters. Most of the game involves solving puzzles. Other parts include: war battles, in which the player must survive under fire through intense shootings; furtive sections, in which the player must avoid detection by the enemy; and car chase scenes. Each character is able to interact with objects, engage in hand-to-hand combat and aim and shoot objects. There are also some traits and skills that are specific to each character, according to the narrative.

As for the plot, this is the story of four characters: Anna, a Belgian nurse; Freddie, an American soldier; Emile, a French farmer; and Karl, his German son-in-law. There is also a dog named Walt who helps the characters solve the puzzles. The story of Valiant Hearts follows the events of World War I chronologically, introducing a different approach to the theme by portraying the human side of war and its dire consequences in people’s lives. Moreover, the game seeks to portray a dimension of war that is not commonly explored by video games, namely the human suffering involved and the fragility of life, issues of death and mortality, and the absurdity of war.

4 Results

This section presents the categories proposed during the analytical phase, as well as the quantitative and qualitative data of the analysis. It should be noted that this process was conducted in a reverse manner to that presented. First the qualitative data were analyzed, then the classifications were created and the comments were quantified by category. However, for the sake of clarity in the presentation of the research in this work, we organized the explanation of the quantitative data before the qualitative data.

4.1 Categories

Categories and their respective subcategories were as follows:

Technical Aspects

  • Technical quality: comments belonging to this category mention the technical qualities of the game, whether related to graphics, sound, realistic features or immersion potential. Within the subcategories, there are comments that present issues related to sound, visual resources or level of realism.

  • Design: comments in this category mention the design presented in the game.

  • Art: comments in this category present opinions on the artistic qualities of the game.

  • Usability: comments in this category mention issues related to usability, user perception during the gaming experience and their answers, according to ISO 9241-110:2010, evaluating the game’s suitability and user learning.

  • Narrative: comments in this category mention the plot or storyline of the game.

Emotional and Sentimental Aspects

Emotions and feelings: comments in this section present user reviews based on the feelings generated when playing the game. It is worth noting that the difference between both concepts is that emotion refers to emotional involvement that is not discriminated by a certain type of emotion, it is merely present or not. Feelings, on the other hand, are specific and easy to detect, such as anger, anguish and others.

General Aspects

  • Positive recommendation: comments in this category present recommendations of the game to other users.

  • Negative recommendation: comments in this category present user reviews that do not recommend the game to other users.

  • Presentation of historical information: comments in this category present reviews in which users address historical factors related to the theme of the game.

  • Mortality: comments in this category present reviews in which users mention death, or human frailty faced with that situation.

4.2 Qualitative Data

The data that led to the definition of each category are presented below.

Technical Quality.

The comments in this section present reviews about the technical quality of the game, such as sound, graphics, scene harmony, as well as immersion and realistic features. In U44’s opinion, the game has “good graphics in spite of the game’s simplicity”. Besides, the sound quality and soundtrack received many compliments from the players, as can be observed in Table 1, in which there are 25 comments. An example is a comment by U14: “the soundtrack aligns very well with the rhythm of the game. The melody manages to be delicate, but can also be intense if a more dramatic moment requires it”. Furthermore, many users praised the game’s realistic features and possibility of immersion, such as U25: “Valiant Hearts manages to show the horror of World War I in a simple manner and without ‘gore’. Even though the artwork seems ‘childlike’, the game manages to be scary and exciting”.

Table 1. Number of comments mentioning technical aspects
Full size table

Design.

The comments in this category mention the game’s design. An example is a comment by U3, who states that “Valiant Hearts has an excellent design”. A similar comment was proffered by U42, who says that “Valiant Hearts: The Great War proves that simplicity is a powerful weapon”.

Art.

The comments in this category mention the game as an art form, such as the remark by U11: “it is a work of art”. Additionally, there are players who elevate the game to the level of a masterpiece, such as U9: “I recommend this game to all who play this masterpiece”.

Usability.

The comments of this section refer to the game’s usability. The game’s usability is generally evaluated as good by most users. One of the comments, by U18, states that: “Usability is light and intuitive, which renders the game very accessible”. Also, U46 claims that “playability is not difficult, as there are many puzzles and clues for players when they get stuck for too long in a part”. However, there were criticisms deeming the game too easy for the player, since learning was too easy. In that respect, U49 states: “what I saw was a puzzle that was too easy and repetitive that it was almost annoying”.

Narrative.

Comments in this section mention the narrative of the game and, as seen in Table 1, most user reviews are positive, such as one by U2, who believes “the narrative [to be] incredibly captivating”; similarly, U11 considers it to be a “beautiful story (…) VERY charismatic characters”. However, there were criticisms about the way the plot is addressed, as exemplified by the opinion of U48: “the game is boring; there is always sad music playing, everything is super dramatic, they overplay the dramatic part so much that when it gets to the end, you’re not moved because you’ve been numbed throughout the whole game”.

Feelings and Emotions.

Comments in this section present reviews in which users mentioned their emotions and feelings generated when playing the game. As presented in Table 2, there are a significant number of comments mentioning feelings and emotions. One of the most common feelings among users was empathy with the presented scenes, as states U1: “right in the beginning you sympathize very quickly with the story and with the characters rooting for you to succeed”. Moreover, U15 talks about the emotional involvement that the game provokes: “It is not enough to have spectacular graphics, the game has to involve the gamer. Valiant Heart goes beyond, and stirs your feelings”. Furthermore, there were players who experienced an overwhelming emotional moment, such as U18, who says: “War isn’t pretty, although the cartoonish style softens it, and I confess I cried at the end”. U28 presented an analogous view: “At first, I read the criticisms, and I thought I wasn’t going to cry like all the others… How wrong I was!”.

Table 2. Number of comments mentioning emotional and sentimental aspects
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Positive Recommendation.

The comments in this section present user reviews regarding the game and recommend it to other players. Table 3 depicts the proportion of positive versus negative recommendations of the game, which demonstrates a high approval rate in the community. Among the many positive comments is one by U8, which says “I recommend this for almost all ages”, or by U32, which states: “I strongly recommend this, especially for those who like puzzle games; this game undoubtedly deserves a rank in the list of best games of the year.”

Table 3. Number of comments mentioning general aspects
Full size table

Negative Recommendation.

The comments in this category present user reviews that do not recommend the game to other users. As presented in Table 3, there was only one negative comment about the game. The review by U49 stated: “I bought this game because of the large number of positive reviews. However, what I saw was a very easy puzzle and it was so repetitive that it was almost annoying. (…) If you want to play a decent puzzle game, try The Cave. If you like sad stories, I recommend Brothers a Tale of Two Sons. But not this game. This is not worth playing”.

Presentation of Historical Information.

The comments in this section present user reviews that address historical factors related to the theme of the game. It is possible to note, in Table 3, the large number of comments dedicated to this category, all of which praise the strong presence of historical content that provides deeper understanding about and immersion into the history presented in the game. According to the opinion of user U6: “The way in which the story is told gets kudos from me, because it talks about both side of WWI, it doesn’t acclaim anyone as a hero, just describes the conflict itself, who was conquering or who as losing territory. It really highlights the situation of the soldiers in trenches, mentions the development of technology; in sum, there are many approaches”. In turn, U13 considers the game “a very fun and exciting history class about the Great War. This game is an example of how games can be expression of art and how they can have didactic content and still remain fun”. Additionally, many users evaluated the game as a history class, such as U25, who claims that “it is totally educational thanks to dozens of information about World War I, told through an interesting and comprehensible narrative”.

Mortality.

The comments in this section mention human mortality and frailty faced with the ravages of war, as the example of U1 who remarks: “In the course of the game, we have reports with incredible details (…) so we fully comprehend how war is dirty and cruel in its many facets (…) brave and honorable men have died to preserve our current way of life and, although their bodies have returned to dust, their sacrifices remain alive, and we must respect and be grateful for that!!” Another comment belongs to U39: “It tells the story of characters behind the trenches of World War I, (…) as well as the casualties that resulted from it.”

4.3 Discussions

It should be noted that, during the classification of the posts, some comments could be assigned to more than one category, since a user can address several topics in the same post, as is the case of a sentence written by U2: “A simple game with good playability and puzzles, with an incredibly catchy plot and an excellent soundtrack.” In the first sentence, there is a review mentioning the usability of the software; in the second, the user talks about the quality of narrative. Finally, he makes an observation regarding the technical sound quality.

Regarding the technical aspects presented during user reviews, the evaluations on the technical quality of graphics and sound are due to software engineering. Moreover, there is the question of the harmony between image and sound, which needs to be well aligned so that nothing is out of context. As far as art and design categories are concerned, they are obviously a combination of image quality, sound quality and usability aspects that, when well presented, provide to players the experience of watching and engaging in something unique and special.

Regarding the feelings and emotions presented in the user reviews, it is clear that one of the main goals of the developers was to present an involving story that was capable of eliciting feelings in the player. When compared to the amount of good reviews regarding feelings, there are 32 positive feedbacks versus 1 negative rating. Despite this evaluation, it is possible to conclude that the game has good acceptability regarding the presentation of an engaging storyline that is capable of eliciting feelings and emotions.

Other categories that are worth discussing are the positive and negative reviews. In a quantitative comparison, there are 25 positive recommendations against a single negative review. Perhaps something that can be evidenced in this is the presence of specific audiences that may or may not like the game, because in the case of the negative evaluation, the player appears to be more demanding in their expectations regarding the storyline and game difficulty, something that may have influenced their negative experience.

Finally, there is the category concerning the presentation of historical facts, which is important for contextualizing the player in the game’s main theme, as well as providing additional knowledge. Within this category, there was the presence of didactic reference in the presentation of historical facts, and in some cases the users actually compared the game to a history class. This factor proves the ability that games have of transmitting, in a different and alternative way, important content that is usually taught in schools, while conveying this knowledge in a light and relaxed means, which is more attractive to the player.

When comparing these results with those obtained in studies with other empathy games [28], it is possible to notice similarities in some aspects approached, mainly the technical ones, like the graphics and sound that play an important role of creating immersion of the player in the virtual world. However, emotional aspects somewhat diverged, since the first analyzed game has a strong emotional appeal from being a personal story and may happen in daily activities. Still, aspects related to death, mortality and mourning were perceived more clearly in this research. In general, both have differentiated aspects, since they are games with distinct purposes and target audiences and thus allowed the emergence of new categories during the analysis.

5 Final Considerations

The central aim of this study was to analyze the perception of users regarding the aspects revealed from the experience of playing an empathy game. In general, the analysis conducted from the discussion forum presented the wealth of aspects involved in this type of game, allowing many possible reflections and studies.

One of the difficulties faced by employing the defined methodology was the diversity of results, since analyzing an empathy game requires interpreting the topic in light of the users’ manifestations and classifying different aspects. Furthermore, because the game addresses issues associated with human frailty, such as death and mortality, players may experience different feelings and emotions, which many times can be misinterpreted due to double meanings in the sentences.

Additionally, the categorization of comments using the human eye takes time and can be inaccurate, even when handled by experts, since there are poorly written expressions, grammar and spelling mistakes, and slang. Exploring tools that automate this process and possibly compare it to this analysis is recommended. Moreover, there is a possibility of using a value-oriented approach in social software [27].

In future research, we will seek to investigate and propose a conceptual framework for the development, preproduction, production and evaluation of empathy games. Additionally, aspects related to feelings and emotions require deeper investigation, since they need to be classified. However, they are easily mistaken aspects, because the presence of double meanings, and the difficulty in knowing what the user really means to say can become a hindrance for the researcher. It is also possible to analyze these aspects in light of the User Experience (UX) theories and methods [29, 30] and, through techniques, capturing groups of emotions, since any media needs to create emotional involvement with the user in order to provide a positive experience.

It should be noted that, based on the analysis conducted in the discussion forums of the game which is the object of this study, there was a strong need to collaboratively align, with all the project stakeholders, the visual and sound aspects with the game narrative, so that they would seem coherent. In addition, in games that include a historical theme, such as the one in which World War I was explored, the context of the game and additional information being presented to the player while exploring the virtual environment can improve user immersion and involvement and, consequently, motivate interaction, besides providing the player with new knowledge.