Real Emotions in Virtual Play: The Impact of Honor of Kings on Players’ Attitudes Toward and Cognition of Historical Figures

Honor of Kings (Tencent Games) is one of the most popular mobile games in the world. This chapter explores how the game influences the historical views of players. A survey was conducted with 907 valid samples of adults with higher educational backgrounds. Data including emotional attitudes towards real historical figures, willingness to learn, and related historical knowledge of the respondents were collected. The respondents’ gaming behavior and demographic information were also measured. The results of the study demonstrate that playing Honor of Kings has an emotional influence on player attitudes towards historical figures, especially for players already familiar with the game’s heroes. The chapter introduces the effect of “real emotions in virtual play”—which is based on the concept of player-avatar identification—as an explanation for this influence.