Beyond Horror and Fear: Exploring Player Experience Invoked by Emotional Challenge in VR Games

Digital gameplay experience depends not only on the type of challenge that the game provides, but also on how the challenge be presented. With the introduction of a novel type of emotional challenge and the increasing popularity of virtual reality (VR), there is a need to explore player experience invoked by emotional challenge in VR games. We selected two games that provides emotional challenge and conducted a 24-subject experiment to compare the impact of a VR and monitor-display version of each game on multiple player experiences. Preliminary results show that many positive emotional experiences have been enhanced significantly with VR while negative emotional experiences such as horror and fear have less been influenced; participants' perceived immersion and presence were higher when using VR than using monitor-display. Our finding of VR's expressive capability in emotional experiences may encourage more design and research with regard to emotional challenge in VR games.