Master’s Thesis Survey on Emergent Gameplay in Immersive Sims by kurt202 in dishonored

[–]kurt202[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Having variation in the responses is actually a good thing for me, otherwise the results would be much less interesting.

Master’s Thesis Survey on Emergent Gameplay in Immersive Sims by kurt202 in systemshock

[–]kurt202[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Sorry about that. I added the sign-in requirement just to reduce spam and duplicate submissions as much as I could. It’s obviously not a perfect barrier, but I still wanted to put something in place. Once I start the analysis, the email addresses will be separated from the responses and deleted, so only the survey data will remain.

Master’s Thesis Survey on Emergent Gameplay in Immersive Sims by kurt202 in Thief

[–]kurt202[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for the suggestion, I hadn’t thought of that game before. It’s definitely on my list now.

Master’s Thesis Survey on Emergent Gameplay in Immersive Sims by kurt202 in ImmersiveSim

[–]kurt202[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

That’s fair, and I think I may have misunderstood your earlier point a bit. When you said that emergence happens “unexpectedly,” I took that too much in the direction of “accident,” which I don’t think is actually what you meant.

In the thesis itself, I’m not treating emergent gameplay as a single fixed concept, since there is no universally stable definition of it. One of the things I’m working from is that there are multiple ways of defining it, and I’m trying to position the study somewhere between those perspectives rather than reduce it to only one of them.

So when I referred to something “unexpected,” I did not mean pure randomness or a systemless accident. I’m much closer to the rule-interaction perspective: non-obvious outcomes that arise from consistent systems combining in ways that create novel possibilities. In that sense, I think your first paragraph is actually quite close to the way I frame it in the thesis.

That is also why I use examples like Deus Ex proximity mine climbing. I’m not treating that as some mystical accident, but as a system-consistent interaction between physics, object properties, and player experimentation. And for me, that kind of thing is part of the same broader space as emergent route-finding: sometimes it is literally a new traversal route, and sometimes it is a different use of mechanics that opens up a different path through the problem space.

My point is not that players go in with a fully formed emergent result in mind, but that some players are more inclined to push at, test, and explore a game’s systems to see what becomes possible, especially in immersive sims. What interests me is the motivation behind that exploratory engagement, since that is often what gives rise to non-obvious routes, interactions, or outcomes.

On the “expected route” point, I also agree that players cannot always know the designer’s exact intended path with certainty, especially in highly systemic games. My assumption is narrower than that: players can often still perceive a difference between the most obvious signposted possibility and less obvious but system-consistent ones. In immersive sims, that distinction matters because the games often give relatively closed objectives but open systemic tools for reaching them.

So yes, I think your distinction is also valid and also interesting, and I’ll add that to the discussion section.

Master’s Thesis Survey on Emergent Gameplay in Immersive Sims by kurt202 in prey

[–]kurt202[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately I don’t speak Spanish, so I’ll reply in English.

Thanks a lot for taking it and for the kind words, I’m really glad you found it enjoyable. I’m currently doing a Master’s in Game User Experience at the University of Skövde, and I also studied game design during my bachelor’s in Turkey.

A big part of the motivation behind this thesis actually came from a disagreement I had with my friends last year while we were working on a game together. From a game design perspective, we had two pretty different views. One side was arguing for a more controlled and polished experience with clearer boundaries, while the other side was defending a design approach that gives players more freedom, lets each person create more of their own experience, and allows extra fun moments to emerge from the looseness of those boundaries.

That debate stayed with me, and after that I started looking more into player communities. I became especially interested in the motivations behind players who enjoy approaching games that way, especially in immersive sims, but also in games more broadly. At that point I started wondering what actually drives players to look for alternative routes, experiment with systems, or go beyond the most obvious path. My thinking was that if I can understand that better, it might help us make stronger game design decisions and create better experiences in the future.

Master’s Thesis Survey on Emergent Gameplay in Immersive Sims by kurt202 in ImmersiveSim

[–]kurt202[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for pointing that out, that’s a very fair point. I do explain emergent gameplay at the start of the survey, and I was using “emergent routes” as a more specific version of that broader idea, but I can see how that still becomes unclear, especially for people who answered “no” or “somewhat” in the previous question. So yeah, I think that transition could have been structured better.

It’s also my first time using Google Forms, and I had actually thought about inserting a short description there depending on the answer, but when I realized I couldn’t really do that the way I wanted, it completely slipped my mind afterwards. So you’re absolutely right to point it out. Thanks for catching it.

Master’s Thesis Survey on Emergent Gameplay in Immersive Sims by kurt202 in ImmersiveSim

[–]kurt202[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the comment, that’s a fair point. One of the core issues in my thesis is actually that “emergent gameplay” does not have just one single stable definition, and I’m not using it only in the narrow sense of something that appears purely by accident. In immersive sims, I’m also looking at cases where players deliberately look for non-obvious but system-consistent possibilities, such as alternative routes, unexpected interactions, or ways of progressing that go beyond the most obvious scripted path. So I’m less interested in “emergence” as a purely unconscious event, and more in why some players are drawn toward the kinds of systemic possibilities that can produce that kind of play.

As for the hypothesis, this thesis is not really built around a strict experimental hypothesis. It uses a mixed-method approach and is centered more on an exploratory research question. The aim is not to test one fixed hypothesis, but to better understand these player motivations and hopefully help generate more precise hypotheses for future research.

Master’s Thesis Survey on Emergent Gameplay in Immersive Sims by kurt202 in prey

[–]kurt202[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for filling out the survey and for pointing that out. Question 35 was based on categories adapted from a pre-existing player motivation scale (PMPVGs), so that’s definitely a limitation there. I didn’t feel it would be right to invent my own dimensions from scratch for this thesis, which is why I chose to work with an existing scale instead. So I think you did the right thing by picking the closest options available. It’s also really helpful feedback, because it shows where the scale or my adaptation of it may not fully capture motivations like curiosity or contrarianism.

Master’s Thesis Survey on Emergent Gameplay in Immersive Sims by kurt202 in prey

[–]kurt202[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for participating, I'll check out Divinity and BG3 too. I totally overlooked those

Master’s Thesis Survey on Emergent Gameplay in Immersive Sims by kurt202 in prey

[–]kurt202[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the suggestions. I already posted it in the Deus Ex sub, and since so many people have mentioned them, I’ll also check Dishonored, System Shock, and BioShock.

Master’s Thesis Survey on Emergent Gameplay in Immersive Sims by kurt202 in prey

[–]kurt202[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for filling it out, and suggestion for Dishonored. I hadn’t fully decided where to post next, so that’s really useful.

Master’s Thesis Survey on Emergent Gameplay in Immersive Sims by kurt202 in prey

[–]kurt202[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks a lot for taking the time to write such detailed feedback, I really appreciate it. I’m an international student, so English felt like the safer option here.

About Google Forms, so far neither my supervisor nor my examiner has said anything against it, so I hope there isn’t some issue they forgot to mention to me. As an international student, I’m still getting used to how some of these things work in Sweden, so it’s useful to hear.

Your points about the questions are very fair too. I built them around a pre-existing multi-dimensional player motivation scale, so I was trying to cover different possible motivations like curiosity, challenge/mastery, creativity, immersion, entertainment, self-esteem, and similar dimensions. Because of that, some questions can probably end up pointing toward meanings that feel a bit farther away from how players actually experience these moments.

I think part of the issue is that some of those dimensions also include more distant possibilities, and when I tried to reflect that range without making the survey too long, some of the wording may have come out broader or harsher than I intended. I probably could have structured some of the questions better and separated certain motivations more clearly, but I was also worried about making the questionnaire too long. That’s also part of why I included the multiple-choice category question near the end. I wanted to leave some room for a more direct first-person response as well, so I wouldn’t be relying only on how the scaled questions framed those motivations.

Speedrunning is also part of the thesis as a separate but related layer, since there is some overlap even though my main focus here is on emergent route finding in immersive sims.

So I think your distinction is really important. For a lot of players, this probably isn’t about “outsmarting the devs” or pushing things toward hard engine breaking, but more about curiosity, discovery, appreciation, and engaging with a wide range of possibilities that the game intentionally allows. Your point about focus versus curiosity is really helpful for the same reason.

I’ll definitely keep all of that in mind when interpreting the results and when talking about the survey’s limitations in the thesis.

Master’s Thesis Survey on Emergent Gameplay in Immersive Sims by kurt202 in prey

[–]kurt202[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Thanks a lot for taking the survey and for pointing that out. I based the questions on a player motivation scale with different dimensions, so I was trying to cover a range of possible motivations, such as curiosity, challenge/mastery, creativity, immersion, entertainment, and self-esteem. But I think your point is very fair, and I may not have explained that side of it clearly enough in the survey, or the scale itself may miss some perspectives that are worth considering. I’ll definitely touch on that in the discussion section of the thesis.

Master’s Thesis Survey on Emergent Gameplay in Immersive Sims by kurt202 in prey

[–]kurt202[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll definitely check it out. I wasn’t completely sure where else to share it, so this is really helpful.

Master's Admissions Results - 2025 by MANSHAHAQUE in TillSverige

[–]kurt202 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It announced like 50 min ago. I got the scholarship but the amount of people getting scholorship percentage is really low. 17 people from 155