What Erotic Tetris Has to Teach Serious Games About Being Serious? Design implications of an experiential ontology of game content

Building on phenomenological insights on the constitution of experienced significance within computer game play, derived from the author's earlier research on Tetris variations with explicit content, this paper presents a comparative close-playing analysis of a number of casual games about climate change. In this analysis, differences emerge between the means by which the games make their contents appear as significant to the players. These differences may have implications to the design of serious games: aligning the actual gameplay and the intended message can assist in safeguarding against players' transgressive interpretations.