On the 12th November 2019, Katharina Emmerich successfully defended her PhD thesis Investigating the Social Player Experience: Social Effects in Digital Games. She received the top mark summa cum laude and is now Dr.-Ing.

Her thesis examines the constituents of the social player experience and investigates the relation between game design aspects, social entities, and the emergent social play. By looking at the topic from various angles, the thesis entails considerations and studies guided by the main research question: how do social entities such as co-players and virtual characters affect players’ experience of playing digital games?

The thesis is published online.