Lighting in digital game worlds : effects on affect and play performance

As a means of extending the significance of findings in experimental psychology and non-visual psychological lighting research to the digital game research, the present study was designed to investigate the impact of warm (reddish) and cool (bluish) simulated illumination in digital game world on game users’ affect and play performance. In line with some previous findings we predicted that lighting in a digital game world might, as in the real world, differently influence the non-visual psychological mechanisms of affect, which in turn might enhance/impair the players’ performance. It was shown that the players performed best/fastest in a game world lit with a warm (reddish) vs. cool (bluish) lighting. The former color of lighting compared to the latter one was also shown to induce the highest level of pleasantness in game users. According to a regression analysis, it was the level of pleasantness induced by the warm lighting that enhanced the players’ better performance in that digital game world. It was also shown that high as opposed to medium/low skill players engage almost 2.5 times more per week in game-playing. Given their skill, they performed significantly fastest and they felt significantly most calm and relaxed in doing that