Affective Systems: Progressing Emotional Human-Computer Interactivity with Adaptive and Intelligent Game Systems

In principle, affective game systems use the relationship between player emotions and video game content to enhance play motivation, increase engagement and enjoyment, and even facilitate health benefits. However, because of theoretical uncertainties in psychological emotion research and a mix of methodological standards in games research, the best means of creating and evaluating them remains unclear. To advance our understanding of affective game systems, this thesis investigates the emotional player-game feedback loop through multiple pathways. It provides a synthesis of relevant research disciplines (Chapter 2) and a systematic review of current affective game research (Chapter 3) to investigate current theoretical and practical issues in the field. To address these issues, it then presents a framework for developing and evaluating affective game systems (Chapter 4). The framework is evaluated through the development of a new video game and a large-scale randomized controlled comparison study (Chapter 5). Further studies (Chapters 6-7) provide additional validation by making use of the framework to explain emotion measurement and elicitation within specific game contexts. Finally, the future of affective systems is examined, focusing on the role of large language models in overcoming historical barriers. New architectures for language model-driven game agents are proposed, highlighting the potential of this technology in affective computing (Chapter 8). Overall, this thesis proposes new approaches to understanding player emotions and provides standardized and validated methods to develop and evaluate affective games. This thesis aims to shed light on the nature of affective systems how they are currently being developed and evaluated, and how they can be improved to maximise potential benefits.