About Games and Life Lab

We are the Games and Life Lab in the Graduate School of Culture Technology(GSCT) at KAIST. We are a developmental psychology-based games research group that has expertise in player-centric research. Our mission is to derive insights that can help both developers and game communities better understand players’ experience with games.

Our Core Values

We do not consider games as a medium detached from reality. We consider it a cultural system that is closely related to our lives. We endeavor to theorize how we can make better connections between games and our lives. We aim to understand sociocultural phenomena around games and research how we can expand wellbeing through games.

Our Research Themes

• Players' artistic experience of games: For the past 3 years, we have explored the artistic experience of game players and created a player typology based on our findings. We are currently in the process of connecting players' preferences for artistic experiences in games with design insights so that they can be used in future game development.
• Accessibility and inclusivity in games and the metaverse: We aim to investigate the experiences of users who are commonly alienated from games and metaverse environments, such as older adult players or players with disabilities. From our findings, we aim to derive design insights on how we can create an open environment that is easy for all users to access and enjoy.
• Sustainability and scalability of games and metaverse: We study how game players and/or metaverse user communities form and evolve across time. We also research the social dynamics within these communities, and how to design sustainable communities.