THE INFLUENCE OF LATERALITY ON PLAYER CHOICE INCLUDING PATHING AND ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS

 Determining the amount of influence a person’s preference for the left or the right shows that an alternative subconscious sways a player’s choices in games that may contradict a game developer’s intentions. Currently game production costs are at all-time highs. Developers continually attempt to utilize an array of technologies and design strategies in the hopes to present more choices, liberating players yet allowing designers to still guide them. However, consider that within the population at large, there are vastly more right-handed individuals than there are left-handed individual. If 75% of right-handed players miss a particular corridor that leads to 5% of gameplay, then developers are producing content without a consistent audience. If developers aim to provide the player with a stress-free tutorial, but in doing so indiscriminately force players to move left and not right, do right-handed players experience uneasiness and frustration when forced to deal with the awkwardness of their left side? If haphazard design invokes these feelings of frustration in players and fights a player’s inhibitions, they are likely to become frustrated, causing an indirect impact on players’ impression, sales, and the like.

This thesis examines the preference for moving left or right of left and right-handed players within video games. It specifically analyzes the relationship between an individual’s laterality (their preference for one side, e.g. their handedness or footedness) in regards to their spatial and pathing choices.