Love, Lust, Courtship and Affection as Evolution in Digital Play

This paper outlines two models for framing affection games as a contribution to the evolution of courtship rituals or as a matriculation through Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It then frames the design of these games through two distinct lenses. The first is a game verb based framing, focusing on the affectionate actions designed to meet game goals. The second is an interaction dynamic framing, which describes digitally contained affection (affections remaining within the game), digitally facilitated affection (affections facilitated by the game) and digitally communicated affections (affection shared through the game). Continued research into affection games offers a peek into the softer side of digital play and gendered play. Its study unearths an intersection between sociological and psychological tendencies and technology. The work provides an update to previous published work in the domain of affection games by providing new data on affection games and the case study game.