Meaningful play and malicious delight: Exploring maldaimonic game UX

TL;DR

This paper investigates maldaimonia, a concept of self-actualization through destructive gaming activities, confirming its presence in game experiences and contributing to dark play research.

Contribution

It introduces maldaimonia as a new experiential construct and demonstrates its existence within game user experiences through analysis of self-reports.

Findings

Maldaimonia exists as a feature of game experience.

Game spaces facilitate maldaimonic expressions.

Confirms maldaimonia as part of dark play phenomena.

Abstract

Maldaimonia is a new experiential concept that refers to self-actualization and self-expression through egocentric, destructive, and/or exploitative activities. Still, it is unclear whether maldaimonia is an actual facet of real experience. As a subversive orientation, it may be rare or socially challenging to discuss openly. However, video games provide a space in which people can be expressive in different ways without the same repercussions as in real life. Indeed, game spaces may be one of the few contexts in which to study maldaimonic experiences. In this study, we examined whether and how maldaimonia exists as a feature of game user experiences by analyzing critical self-reports of gaming activities, confirming its existence. We contribute this new construct to work on "dark play" in games research.