Mapping Effort-Emotion Concomitance in Tabletop Games

Emotions and mental effort are both central elements of games. Usually, we link in-game exertions to observable actions and logical decisions. Moreover, the emphasis on evaluating and comparing games based on the “quantification of effort” disguises its underlying processes. The association of effort with emerging emotions also gets neglected. In games research, the significance of effort’s perception on other broader emotional experiences like immersion, engagement, flow, frustration, and fun is often discussed but hardly empirically explored, especially through qualitative methods. This paper presents a specific research project aimed at delving into novel methods to observe, capture, and detail the linkage between effort and emotions in tabletop games. It will be shown that using qualitative data collection methods like experience sampling and analysis approaches such as thematic analysis opens possibilities to trace the nature of the association between effort and emotion during gameplay. Effort and emotions are not seen as sharing a “cause-and-effect” relationship but are understood as co-existing and overlapping to the extent that it is difficult to separate one from the other, hence called “Effort-Emotion Concomitance.” Consequently, this study provides an innovative consideration for gameplay research.