If You Hold Me Without Hurting Me: Pathways to Designing Game Audio for Healthy Escapism and Player Well-being

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Nunes, Caio, Borges, Bosco, Cruz, Georgia, Darin, Ticianne
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Nunes, Caio
Borges, Bosco
Cruz, Georgia
Darin, Ticianne
author_facet Nunes, Caio
Borges, Bosco
Cruz, Georgia
Darin, Ticianne
contents Escapism in games can support recovery or lead to harmful avoidance. Self-regulation, understood as combining autonomy with positive outcomes, is key to this distinction. We argue that audio, often overlooked, plays a central role in regulation. It can modulate arousal, mark transitions, and provide closure, yet its contribution to well-being remains underexplored. This paper identifies methodological and accessibility gaps that limit recognition of audio's potential and outlines ways to address them. We aim to encourage researchers and developers to integrate audio more deliberately into the design and study of healthier escapist play.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_14691
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle If You Hold Me Without Hurting Me: Pathways to Designing Game Audio for Healthy Escapism and Player Well-being
Nunes, Caio
Borges, Bosco
Cruz, Georgia
Darin, Ticianne
Human-Computer Interaction
Multimedia
Sound
H.5.5; H.5.2; J.5
Escapism in games can support recovery or lead to harmful avoidance. Self-regulation, understood as combining autonomy with positive outcomes, is key to this distinction. We argue that audio, often overlooked, plays a central role in regulation. It can modulate arousal, mark transitions, and provide closure, yet its contribution to well-being remains underexplored. This paper identifies methodological and accessibility gaps that limit recognition of audio's potential and outlines ways to address them. We aim to encourage researchers and developers to integrate audio more deliberately into the design and study of healthier escapist play.
title If You Hold Me Without Hurting Me: Pathways to Designing Game Audio for Healthy Escapism and Player Well-being
topic Human-Computer Interaction
Multimedia
Sound
H.5.5; H.5.2; J.5
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.14691