Abstract
To date, most research on user experiences in digital games has focused on what happens during game play. In this chapter, we conceptualize the phenomenon of postgame experiences, that is, experiences gamers have once they stopped playing. We propose and tackle two types of postgame experiences: short-term postgame experiences that arise immediately after game play and long-term postgame experiences that occur after repeatedly and intensively playing a particular game or game genre. We present two focus group studies that offered qualitative insights into which postgame experiences are at play, to what extent, and under which conditions. The chapter concludes with a discussion and recommendations for future research.
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Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the European Commission’s Framework 6 IST program. In particular, the work reported here has been supported by the FUGA project (part of the IST – New and Emerging Science and Technology program) and the Games@Large project (part of the IST – Networked Audio-Visual Systems and Home Platforms program).
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Poels, K., IJsselsteijn, W., de Kort, Y., Van Iersel, B. (2010). Digital Games, the Aftermath: Qualitative Insights into Postgame Experiences. In: Bernhaupt, R. (eds) Evaluating User Experience in Games. Human-Computer Interaction Series. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-963-3_9
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