Art Video Games

Abstract

This study conducted analytical and semiexperimental research with the purpose of testing if art video games serve as a form of transmission of social representations and feelings. Accordingly, a free-association questionnaire was used after participants played the game The Graveyard. The associative method was paired with item hierarchization and clustering techniques using a structural approach. The data were analyzed using mixed methods (frequency analysis, semantic weight, and categorical clustering). Additionally, a cluster analysis was conducted to determine connections between representations. Afterward, categories were compared with the representations the game designers wanted to transmit to the players. The results of the research confirmed the possibility of accessing people’s social representations using a video game as stimulus. Cluster analyses depicted that these representations were emotionally linked and socially shared among the players without regard to age or gender. The relation with the designers’ representations about the game was found to be not significant.