Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Advanced technologies used in games allow players to behave freely in the game world. Like in the real world, there maybe complex motives for a behavior. Although how a player behaves in a game is afforded by the games rules, motivesmay differ depending on the type of player. For example, a player who regards the game as mere rule-based play maybehave differently as compared to a player who perceives the game as another reality with its own rules and sociality.This study focuses on understanding players prosocial behavior in games and empathy as their motive. A survey wasconducted to look at the relationships between prosocial behavior, empathy, and different types of players (depending ontheir interpretation of gameplay). The results showed that the type of player did not affect their levels of empathy, but itmoderated the effect of empathy on prosocial behavior toward other characters.