Medo em jogo: performatividade sensorial nos videogames de horror

Abstract

This thesis investigates the performance and the sensoriality in electronic games of horror. The thematic framming is based on the notion that digital culture reconfigures our forms of communication, stimulating multiple sensorialities and the video game, product of this culture, explores the sensations and perceptions of its players. The central proposition of this study is that the body is a key element for both horror and game studies. This is the core idea behind this research that aims to investigate, through theoretical studies and empirical observation, how different sensorial appeals can influence the performance of a player in the face of a game challenge. With the theoretical grounding from the studies of performance, digital culture, cognitive sciences and game studies, the research is based on authors such as Varela, Thompson & Rosch (2000), Zumthor (1993; 2007), Schechner (2006), Jørgensen (2011) e Ermi & Mäyrä (2011). To gather data capable of contributing to this reflection, the methodological procedures delimited for the field were: a) inviting players with different levels of experience with video games and the horror genre to play three horror games with different gameplay, through a previous questionnaire; b) after each interaction they were instigated to write a fictional text that evoked sensory elements of the player -game relationship during the experience; and, finally, c) conducting a semi-structured mini- interview related to the research and the session. Thus, through this investigation it was possible to gauge certain performance influences of the players participating in the study, both in the physical and in the virtual space. Or, in other words, from this study we sought to highlight the centrality of the body and the sensorial issues involved in the consumption and appropriation of products of the horror genre, especially in games. The quasi-laboratorial research revealed some results, of which we highlight: 1) Immersion and performance can be understood by the notion of role-playing. However, the latter is independent of the first to be performed; 2) Another observed fact was the desire to erase the interface, to forget that it is interacting and to act directly ; 3) Curiosity, suspense, anxiety, tension, anguish and even fear are desired in a controlled environment; and 4) Sound, or its absence, is a sensitizing element of experience