"I Would Not Be This Version of Myself Today": Elaborating on the Effects of Eudaimonic Gaming Experiences

2025-07-24

AI Summary

Existing game studies predominantly focus on hedonic experiences (e.g., flow, enjoyment), neglecting “eudaimonic gameplay experiences”—characterized by meaning-making and mixed emotions—and their longitudinal individual outcomes, particularly lacking empirical investigation into their effect dimensions. Method: This study employs a mixed-methods design (n = 166), integrating narrative analysis with quantitative modeling to systematically identify outcomes of meaningful gameplay. Contribution/Results: We identify five empirically grounded positive outcomes: reflective growth, cognitive learning, social connectedness, psychosomatic well-being, and vocational development. For the first time, we validate the mediating pathways through which motivation, usage patterns, and experiential components influence these outcomes—thereby filling a critical theoretical gap in the eudaimonic gameplay model’s “effects” component. These findings extend the theoretical framework of game-based well-being, demonstrating that mixed-emotion experiences can catalyze multidimensional personal development. The results provide empirically grounded guidance for designing games that foster players’ long-term flourishing.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: Game Design — Procedural Content Generation & Storytelling
• Game Theory and Economic Paradigms: Behavioral Game Theory
• Multiagent Systems: Mechanism Design

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Studies of user behavior, including longitudinal effects of personalized systems
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Incentives in network design for Web infrastructures and ecosystems
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy

Abstract

While much of the research in digital games has emphasized hedonic experiences, such as flow, enjoyment, and positive affect, recent years have seen increased interest in eudaimonic gaming experiences, typically mixed-affect and associated with personal meaningfulness and growth. The formation of such experiences in games is theorized to have four constituent elements: motivation, game use, experience, and effects. However, while the first three elements have been relatively well explored in the literature, the effects - and how they may influence positive individual outcomes - have been underexplored thus far. To this end, in this work, we investigate the perceived outcomes of eudaimonic gaming and how different components of the experience influence these effects. We conducted a survey (n = 166) in which respondents recounted meaningful gaming experiences and how they affected their present lives. We used a mixed-methods approach to classify effects and identify significant subcomponents of their formation. We contribute an empirical understanding of how meaningful gaming experiences can lead to positive reflective, learning, social, health, and career effects, extending current theoretical models of eudaimonic gaming experiences and offering implications for how researchers and practitioners might use these findings to promote positive outcomes for players.

Problem

• Investigates perceived outcomes of eudaimonic gaming experiences
• Explores how gaming components influence positive individual effects
• Examines meaningful gaming impacts on reflective, learning, social, health, career

Innovation

• Survey on eudaimonic gaming outcomes
• Mixed-methods analysis of experience components
• Empirical model for positive player effects