Digital games occupy a big position in today’s media culture. The early
Japanese culture of home digital games partly developed with content intended
to scare the player. The frightening experiences that are involved in playing
such games have been often talked about by the players, even if the games were
not necessarily of the horror genre. However, conventional Japanese digital
game studies cannot explain these social facts of the frightening experiences
sufficiently.
The purpose of this paper is to deal with the theoretical problem mentioned
above. By considering the frightening experiences in Japanese games
concretely, this paper submits a novel and effective theoretical and cultural
interpretation of the experience in digital games as media. It is a ‘fear not to
fade away’ arising from gaming practices that this paper notices in particular.
This paper is written with the following method and procedure. Firstly,
this paper checks the framework of the conventional theory of experiences in
digital games（ Section 1）. Secondly, the problem of this framework is examined
in detail by way of discussing the frightening experiences（ Section 2）. Then, in
order to manage this problem, this paper considers the concrete cases of playing
AVGs（Adventure Games） and RPGs（Role Playing Games） in the Japanese
game culture （Section 3）. Finally, conclusions are derived from the previous
discussion and considerations（ Section 4）.
The conclusions of this paper are as follows. Firstly, the media theory of
experiences in digital games should pay attention to the player’s mental, bodily
and sensorial self-transfer to the media. Secondly, in Japanese society around
1990, the cultural development of digital games with many narrative elements
（in particular in AVGs and RPGs） necessarily produced the possibilities of
“being shocked” experience.
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