Video games as relational institutions: emotions, rules, and digital environments

This paper argues that video games – far from being mere entertainment – constitute fully fledged digital institutions. Focusing on massively multiplayer online games, it shows how rule-based environments make institutional processes unusually visible, traceable, and dynamic. Building on post-Northian institutional theory and the 4E cognition framework, the paper advances a socio-cognitive perspective in which institutions are not only systems of rules and incentives but also affective environments. Emotions are shown to play a constitutive role, understood relationally rather than as internal states or institutional properties alone: they shape how agents interpret constraints, coordinate action, and engage in moral evaluation. Through the analysis of violence, reward mechanisms, and governance structures, the paper demonstrates how institutional design organises both behaviour and emotional experience. By foregrounding the affective dimension of institutional life, it contributes to a broader theory of digital institutions in which cognition, interaction, and emotion are tightly integrated.