Affective computing research has recently experienced the adoption of its own technological advancements by an increasing number of domains (e-commerce, news reading, web 2.0 services, and human-computer interfaces). The capability of affect-aware applications and, especially, games delivering enhanced user immersion and engagement defines the driving force behind this adoption. Inevitably, such environments are unique elicitors of emotion and the study of user experience in those environments is of paramount importance for the understanding of game play internal mechanics. In this framework, games are increasingly used in learning, both in formal education and in teaching social and/or vocational skills, putting into action higher-level psychological concepts, such as attention, engagement and flow, and introducing modern reward systems to make game play more appealing.

Capturing, analyzing and synthesizing player experience in both traditional screen-based games, and augmented- and mixed-reality platforms has been a challenging area within the crossroads of cognitive science, psychology, artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction. Additional gameplay input modalities, such as gestures and movement (e.g. with Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Kinect, or smartphones), image, and speech, enhance the importance of the study and the complexity of player experience. Sophisticated techniques from artificial and computational intelligence can be used to recognize the affective state of player/learner, based on multiple modalities of player-game interaction, and to model emotion in non-playing characters. Multiple modalities of input can also provide a novel means for game platforms to measure player satisfaction and engagement when playing, without necessarily having to resort to post-experience and off-line questionnaires. For instance, players immersed by gameplay will rarely gaze away from the screen, while disappointed or indifferent players will typically show very little response or emotion. Adaptation game techniques can also be used to maximise player experience, thereby, closing the affective game loop: e.g. change the game soundtrack to a vivid or dimmer tune to match the player’s powerful stance or prospect of defeat. In addition to this, procedural content generation techniques may be employed, based on the level of user engagement and interest, to dynamically produce new, adaptable and personalised content (e.g. a new level in a physics skills game, which poses enough challenge to players, without disappointing them or a set of advanced questions or tasks for players that appear to be bored).