“Everything Seems to Be More Final in Live Matches”: Player Experience of Over the Board Chess and Digital Chess
Puha, Benjamin (2023)
2023
Master's Programme in Game Studies
Informaatioteknologian ja viestinnän tiedekunta - Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2023-05-19
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202304264623
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202304264623
Tiivistelmä
In its long history, chess has seen various changes. The most recent change being the digitisation of chess, which has transformed the beloved tabletop game to a digital one. Today, chess is played by millions and most commonly it is played over the board or digitally. Despite this, whether the player experience of digital chess differs from the one in over the board chess has not been studied.
Thus, the objective of this thesis is to determine whether the player experience of over the board chess is different from that of digital chess and if so, what are the differences in the player experience. An online survey was conducted to collect data, and the data was in turn analysed with the method of thematic analysis.
The findings show that most chess players think the player experience of the two chesses is different. A small section of the respondents feel that the experience is identical. Furthermore, those who find a difference report a variety of differences which can be categorised into five themes. In general, the respondents prefer the experience of over the board chess more than the digital version as they see it more social and competitive. Digital chess, for most, is lacking in the social aspects and has thus the worse experience. However, digital chess is often seen as the optimal version for faster games of chess.
Thus, the objective of this thesis is to determine whether the player experience of over the board chess is different from that of digital chess and if so, what are the differences in the player experience. An online survey was conducted to collect data, and the data was in turn analysed with the method of thematic analysis.
The findings show that most chess players think the player experience of the two chesses is different. A small section of the respondents feel that the experience is identical. Furthermore, those who find a difference report a variety of differences which can be categorised into five themes. In general, the respondents prefer the experience of over the board chess more than the digital version as they see it more social and competitive. Digital chess, for most, is lacking in the social aspects and has thus the worse experience. However, digital chess is often seen as the optimal version for faster games of chess.