Difference between revisions of "Text on suspense, games and IS"

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Full Text (Klimmt, Vorderer, Roth)

Interactive storytelling can facilitate diverse and complicated modes of user experience. One experiential quality that is likely to occur when users become immersed in interactive narratives is suspense. Suspense has been theorized extensively in communication science and literature studies (Vorderer, Wulff & Friedrichsen, 1996), and there are also conceptual proposals that suspense occurs frequently in interactive entertainment, most importantly video games (Grodal, 2000; Klimmt, Rizzo, Vorderer, Fischer & Koch, 2009). A construal of suspense in interactive storytelling needs to address the interactivity component with priority, because the opportunity to affect the course of the narrative (e.g., to contribute to the solution of conflict) is likely to have consequences for the emergence and quality of suspense experiences.

Users of interactive storytelling applications know that they are offered some possibilities to act (e.g., make a character talk, pick up items, manipulate objects, or shape the development of a dialogue with an autonomous agent). In some situations during exposure to the applications, users are free to implement their action possibilities. In other situations, the narrative will require users to become active and execute a specific action in order to facilitate story progress (e.g., to “save” an autonomous agent that is in danger or to solve a puzzle that the user is facing). For user enjoyment, it is crucial whether they enter an episode that features very low or no immediate pressure to act or if they begin an episode that includes a strong necessity to act (e.g., dangers approaching, undesirable developments of the storyline emerging).

In the first case, users can apply their possibilities to act to explore the world of the interactive story. In the absence of pressures, they can try out character moves and commands, move around freely and detect new areas and challenges, or simply cover distances to times or places when/where there is more „to do“. Exploration is, according to curiosity theories (e.g., aesthetics theory: Berlyne, 1960, interest theory: Krapp, 1993; cognitive-epistemic theory: Groeben & Vorderer, 1988) an enjoyable process in most cases. That is, exploration should be „successful“ in the sense that the individual finds something new in the environment that reduces the uncertainty of the actual exploration stage. Discoveries breed satisfaction, feelings of competence, and optimism, which all contributes to game enjoyment. As a consequence, the enjoyment process of low-pressure-to-act episodes can be construed as exploration action: At the beginning, users select from their repertoire of available actions (which depends on the narrated situation and on their individual skills) in order to explore a certain part of the story world (e.g., geographic exploration, testing of new tools). They execute the chosen action and observe the result of their action in the narrative’s context, that is, the discoveries they made (for instance, finding an interesting room, learning about new uses for a piece of equipment, or building a relationship with an autonomous agent). The curiosity that accompanies the exploration action and the positive experiences that come along with successful discoveries contribute to the sustained, intense enjoyment of interactive narratives. For episodes with low pressure to act, then, curiosity, uncertainty about the environment, and the reduction of this uncertainty through successful discovery (Berlyne, 1960) are theorized as “fun factors”.

However, exploration does not “work” successfully every time. If no significant discovery is made, frustration or boredom arise, which undermine enjoyment (Ragheb & Merydith, 2001). To the extent that exploration action leads to a positive outcome, however, curiosity and exploration processes are suggested important elements of the appreciation of interactive storytelling applications.

In other situations during exposure to an interactive narrative, users are confronted with a strong necessity to act. Opponents, dangers, time limits, traps and other difficulties that story systems “send out” towards the user reduce the degrees of freedom in her/his decisions and actions. While in exploration episodes (see above), users are free to try out action options and experience enjoyment because of the absence of pressures to act in a specific way (or to act at all), these kinds of episodes force users to respond to given circumstances and to avoid undesired episode outcomes, such as dead of the user character or sympathetic autonomous agents. Strong-pressure-to-act episodes thus create the necessity that users select a suitable, task-appropriate action from their available options and implement this action in a correct, effective and succesful way. If they fail to select a goal-oriented action option or to implement that action (e.g., due to low speed of movement or erroneous keyboard input), the opposing forces will cause significant disadvantages for the users. In other words, failure is costly in situations with high pressure to act. At the beginning of such narrative episodes, then, users are confronted with a necessity to act (e.g., approaching antagonists), which also implies that users formulate a goal: They define a desirable outcome of the episode (e.g., defeat of the antagonist and survival of the user character). However, initially, it is in most cases unclear if the users will achieve that desired outcome and thus shape the interactive narrative in the preferred way, because the episode outcome depends on the narrated situation (e.g., intentions and resources of the antagonist agent) and the skills of the user (e.g., experience with the input interface, creativity to find a solution to the current threat).

The configuration of a necessity to act with a desired outcome of the episode and uncertainty about whether the desired outcome will be achieved is a direct equivalent of what Zillmann (1994; 1996) has proposed as ingredients of suspense in drama spectators. According to his affective disposition theories (see Raney, 2006, for a recent overview), suspense in viewers comes out of hopes and fears related to the faith of (main) characters in the film/drama. For those characters that viewers like (positive disposition), good outcomes (e.g., saving the world, marriage with a beautiful character, public acknowledgment) are hoped for and bad outcomes (e.g., killed-in-action by villains, public ignorance) are feared. Complimentarily, for those characters that viewers dislike (negative disposition), positive outcomes (e.g., the bad defeats the good) are feared, and negative outcomes (e.g., the deserved punishment of the villain) are hoped for. This double mixture of hopes and fears co-occurs in drama/movie viewers with uncertainty about the actual outcomes for the characters: Typical “suspense” movies leave the solution who wins and who loses open until the very end by sustaining the uncertainty about which side will prevail. This way, viewers hopes and fears are operating as long as possible. Very similarly, video game episodes with a high necessity to act create the configuration of hopes (e.g., the wish that the player character survives the enemy attack) and fears (e.g., the fear that the hostile forces will prevail) with uncertainty about the outcome of the episode. Consequently, suspense is the emotional experience of players at the beginning of a high-necessity-to-act episode (Klimmt, 2003; Grodal, 2000; Klimmt et al., 2009). The same suspense mechanics are likely to occur in interactive storytelling when users are confronted with narrated events that ‘demand’ user activity.

While suspense is not a pleasurable emotional state per se, it is frequently appreciated by media audiences and obviously an important part of media entertainment, as the many successful movies and television shows that (can) evoke suspense experiences suggest (Vorderer, Wulff & Friedrichsen, 1996; Vorderer, Klimmt & Ritterfeld, 2004). Thus, suspense is identified as one major component of the enjoyment of interactive stories, specifically during episodes that feature a necessity to act for the user.

Suspense experiences that arise from uncertainty about the further progress of the narrated events and the desire for a specific type of progress typically come along with corresponding relief experiences. Relief is the emotional response to the observation of ‘happy ends’ in drama episodes (i.e., when a movie comes exactly to the end the viewers have hoped for), and similar affective reactions have been argued to occur after the successful resolution of suspenseful video game episodes. Zillmann (1996a) has introduced excitation transfer theory to explain the remarkably strong positive experience of such ‘happy-end events’. This theory suggests that physiological arousal levels change quite slowly. High arousal (such as the arousal that occurs in situations of high suspense) needs relatively much time to go down to normal levels again, especially compared to the time demands of most cognitive processes. Zillmann (1996a) argues that media users hold high levels of arousal throughout the reception of suspensful stories, because arousal is an important component of suspense (Vorderer et al., 1996). Once the ‘happy end’ occurs, that is, the story turns into the outcome that media users had hoped for, the uncertainty and perceived negativity of the suspense stage of the story vanish immediately. They are replaced by positive evaluations of the situation (happiness, relief, cheerfulness, etc., see Bosshart & Macconi, 1998). While this positive re-evaluation of the situation – as a cognitive process – is performed very quickly, the high level of arousal from the suspense stage cannot go down to normal that fast and remains although its reason (uncertainty, anxiety concerning the story characters) is already gone. Consequently, the arousal of the suspense stage is transferred to the stage of positive situation evaluation when the happy end occurs. The combination of positive cognition and (still) high arousal is experienced as “euphorya” (Zillmann, 1996a) and is the psychological reconstruction of the relief that most media users display in happy-end sequences of movies and dramas.

Because of the similarity between suspense in movie viewers and in players during video game episodes with a strong necessity to act (see above), it is also reasonable to assume an excitation transfer process for video game players in the case of positive episode outcomes (Klimmt, 2003). For instance, in episodes with approaching enemies, suspense is evoked due to the players’ hope to “survive” the attack, the desire to defeat the enemies and the uncertainty about whether they will achieve their goals. If the players’ actions are successful and their goals are achieved (positive outcome), the same process of excitation transfer should occur in video game players that was proposed for movie viewers: Players evaluate the episode outcome positive and still hold an increased level of arousal from the uncertainty stage of the episode. Thus, they have a “happy-end experience” that is modeled by excitation transfer theory.

One aspect of this positive relief experience that is special to video games has to be discussed here, because it is bound to interactivity, which is a feature both of video games and interactive storytelling applications. Klimmt (2003) argues that the positive emotional experience of successfully mastered game episodes is even stronger in game players due to video game interactivity. The reason for this assumption is that in contrast to readers or movie viewers, video game players can (and must) achieve their action goals by themselves. Their action, their skill, their courage is needed to generate positive episode outcomes. Readers and viewers, however, have to rely on the action, skills, courage, etc. of the characters that occur in the non-interactive story or film. They cannot claim the glory for success, because they are mere observers of media characters’ actions. But game players can attribute positive episode outcomes to their performance, as they have used the game’s interactivity to achieve the positive result. Because players can and must interact with the game to resolve suspenseful situations, they can attribute positive episode outcomes to themselves. Motivational theories (e.g., Weiner, 1985) argue that if individuals believe they are responsible for positive events, self-esteem is increased due to feelings of pride and competence. Video game interactivity allows players to claim their performance as reason for the positive episode outcome; consequently, their self-esteem is pushed upwards, and pride (as a strong positive emotion) is evoked. Players truly feel as winners and perceive themselves as competent and powerful. The boost of self-esteem is specific to interactive video games (compared to non-interactive entertainment media) and is assumed to intensify the positive experience of excitation transfer when positive episode outcomes occur (see above). Thus, a dual mechanism of game enjoyment is triggered by suspenseful episodes that end in the way players desire: (1) Happiness/relief experiences due to excitation transfer (Zillmann, 1996a) and (2) increase of self-esteem that manifests in feelings of pride and competence (Weiner, 1985). Because interactive storytelling applications share with video games the element of user impact on displayed events, we argue that the same dualism of relief and increased self-esteem based on feelings of success and competence is at work if users of interactive stories manage to resolve an episode in the way that matches their intentions. The experience of suspense that results from hoping for a specific outcome and the uncertainty about the outcome transforms into a strongly positive experience of relief and pride. However, if users shape the plot events in a way that leads to an undesired outcome (e.g., an autonomous agent becomes angry instead of providing positive feedback to the user), the stage of suspense will not turn into this double-positive experience, but rather shift to a state of frustration (due to the lack of relief and the impression of own failure, because users have to attribute the undesired outcome to themselves just as they attribute positive outcomes to themselves). The ups and downs of desirable and less desirable episode outcomes can generate significant affective dynamics of suspense, relief/pride, and frustration, which can result, over a longer period of time, in a highly pleasurable meta-experience of participating in the interactive story. Suspense is, as the precursor both of relief and frustration experiences, a key element of this affective dynamics, and it is an important tool to keep users involved and curious about how the story can and will proceed.

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