Towards Qualia-Driven Design

Abstract

Video games act as engines that communicate aspects of experience through player interaction. We argue that this communication of first-person experience (qualia) is unique in its ability to interact with a player's mind-body in a potent and observable way. Unfortunately for designers and researchers, many of the desirable traits of video games are not inherently measurable via traditional, quantitative means - they are emergent properties dependent on the perspectives with which they are observed. This paper investigates the work of video game designers as it relates to phenomenology and embodied cognition and lays out a path for future researchers and designers to leverage phenomenology as a foundation for video game creation. We offer that the intersection between embodied cognition, game design, and phenomenology suggests a path from descriptions of conscious experiences (qualia) to real, distributable design recommendations in video game design and study.